L 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSHTY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


J 


ACO  69  0 


c-"1  L  \i  I 


THE  RISE 
OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 


THE  RISE 
OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 


BY 

ALGERNON  SIDNEY  CRAPSEY 

AUTHOR  OF  "RELIGION  AND  POLITICS."   "REBIRTH  OF  RELIGION,- 
"THE  GREATER  LOVE,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1914 


Copyright,   1914,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


Published,  September,  1914 


UNIVERSITY  OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA  LIB!' 


TO 

THAT  GREAT  COMPANY  OF 

MEN,  WOMEN,  AND  CHILDREN 

WHO  GO   FORTH   TO   THEIR  WORK  AND  THEIR 

LABOR  UNTIL  THE  EVENING,  BEARING  THE 

BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY,  THIS 

BOOK  IS  RESPECTFULLY  AND 

GRATEFULLY  DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

The  industrial  revolution  consequent  upon  the 
invention  and  adoption  of  labor-saving  machinery 
has  profoundly  modified  the  structure  of  society. 
The  most  important  of  these  social  changes  are  the 
destruction  of  the  family  as  the  industrial  unit 
and  the  rise  of  the  working-class.  The  family 
which  from  prehistoric  times  has  been  the  industrial 
and  political  unit  is  in  process  of  dissolution.  The 
working-class  has  arisen  from  the  servile  condition 
of  the  ancient  and  medieval  world  to  a  state  of  free- 
dom and  growing  dignity  and  importance.  Hav- 
ing secured  the  political  franchise,  this  class  is  be- 
coming supreme  in  the  political  affairs  of  the  world. 

Living  as  we  do  in  the  midst  of  these  changes, 
we  are  not  yet  aware  of  their  extent,  nor  have  we 
grasped  their  full  significance. 

We  are  in  the  control  of  a  revolution  more  far- 
reaching  in  its  consequences  than  any  that  has  oc- 
curred since  the  passage  of  the  higher  races  of  men 
from  barbarism  to  civilization.  Civilization  was 
based  on  the  family  as  the  political  and  industrial 
unit  and  on  the  servility  of  the  working-class  as 
the  economic  system. 


viii  PREFACE 

The  dissolution  of  the  family  and  the  rise  of  the 
working-class  make  the  continuance  of  the  old  or- 
der impossible  and  compel  a  reorganization  of  so- 
ciety. 

This  reorganization  can  come  about  only  by  a 
recognition  on  the  part  of  all  classes  of  its  inevita- 
bleness.  The  upper  classes  which  until  now  have 
been  supreme  must  surrender  their  supremacy  and 
merge  themselves  with  the  mass  of  the  people. 
This  they  will  not  do  so  long  as  they  look  upon  their 
privileges  as  of  divine  right  or  as  of  natural  order. 
It  is  only  by  seeing  things  as  they  are  and  adjust- 
ing ourselves  to  them  that  we  can  hope  to  avert 
social  catastrophe. 

In  the  pages  that  follow  is  an  effort  to  present 
the  two  salient  facts  of  present  history,  the  disso- 
lution of  the  family  and  the  rise  of  the  working- 
class,  so  that  the  reader  can  fully  grasp  their  im- 
port and  regulate  his  thinking  and  his  action  in 
accordance  with  these  facts. 

In  the  first  chapter  of  my  book  I  have  made  a 
rapid  survey  of  social  changes  from  the  lowest 
period  of  savagery  to  the  present  time.  The  pur- 
pose of  this  survey  is  to  show  that  human  society 
has  been  from  the  beginning,  and  is  now,  in  a  condi- 
tion of  unstable  equilibrium.  It  has  been  subject 
to  constant  and  violent  changes.  By  this  survey  I 
hope  to  overcome,  in  a  measure,  the  inveterate  be- 


PREFACE  ix 

lief  in  the  permanence  of  the  present  which  is  the 
obsession  of  us  all. 

In  so  rapid  a  survey  there  must  be  an  absence  of 
detail  which  will  offend  the  learned  reader.  Let 
such  a  reader  remember  that  this  chapter  is  not  a 
detailed  account  but  a  birdseye  view  of  the  course 
of  social  development.  Much  that  is  there  the 
birdseye  view  does  not  see,  but  all  that  the  birds- 
eye  view  sees  is  there.  There  must  have  been  some 
order  of  social  progress ;  the  order  laid  down  in  the 
book  is  the  one  that  has  justified  itself  to  the  writer. 

The  two  pioneers  who  have  been  my  guides 
through  the  tangled  wilderness  of  savagery,  bar- 
barism, and  early  civilization  are  Lewis  H.  Mor- 
gan and  Fustel  de  Coulanges. 

Morgan  in  his  Ancient  Society  has  done  for  so- 
ciology what  Darwin  in  the  Origin  of  Species  did 
for  biology.  It  is  not  to  the  credit  of  American 
publishers  that  this  great  work,  which  is  recog- 
nized as  a  supreme  authority  by  all  Europe  on 
the  subject  of  which  it  treats,  is  available  to  the 
American  reader  only  in  the  cumbersome  and  al- 
most inaccessible  original  library  edition  or  in  the 
cheap  and  inadequate  edition  issued  by  Charles 
H.  Kerr  &  Co.  of  Chicago.  The  reediting  and  the 
reissuing  of  this  book  waits  for  the  scholar  able 
and  the  publisher  willing  to  undertake  this  im- 
portant and  beneficent  task. 


x  PREFACE 

The  equally  important  book  the  Ancient  City 
by  Fustel  de  Coulanges  has  been  translated  into 
English  and  may  be  found  in  any  well-appointed 
library.  Until  one  has  mastered  these  two  books, 
Morgan's  Ancient  Society  and  De  Coulanges' 
Ancient  City,  one  has  no  right  to  final  judgment 
on  any  question  relating  to  the  periods  of  savagery, 
barbarism,  and  early  civilization. 

My  statements  in  regard  to  the  Medieval  period 
are  based  upon  a  careful  reading  of  Gibbon,  Hal- 
lam,  Bryce,  and  many  other  writers  on  this  most 
interesting  period  of  human  history.  I  have  also 
consulted  original  sources  as  given  in  Henderson's 
Documents  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Proceedings  of 
the  Council  of  Constance,  the  Chronicles  of  Frois- 
sart  and  other  works  of  like  character. 

My  statements  as  to  recent  and  present-day  his- 
tory are  founded  partly  upon  personal  observation, 
covering  a  period  of  nearly  half  a  century  and 
partly  upon  a  reading  of  a  small  portion  of  the 
voluminous  literature  upon  the  subject.  For  my 
statements  as  to  the  condition  of  the  poor  of  Lon- 
don, I  refer  the  reader  to  Charles  Booth's  monu- 
mental wrork  on  that  ghastly  subject. 

My  book  is  written  frankly  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  rising  working-class.  It  is  an  effort 
to  give  that  point  of  view  to  the  reader  of  the  upper 


PREFACE  xi 

and  middle  class.  I  ask  such  reader  not  to  con- 
demn, but  to  consider. 

The  chapter  on  the  out-family  woman  is  a  meager 
outline  of  a  vast,  interesting  and  important  sub- 
ject. The  story  of  the  out-family  woman  in  all  its 
tragedy,  its  pathos,  and  its  beauty  is  yet  to  be 
written. 

The  chapter  on  the  Revolt  of  the  Parasites  is  an 
effort  to  appreciate  the  feminist  movement  in  its 
extreme  manifestation ;  not  to  praise  nor  to  blame, 
but  just  to  understand, —  and  to  relate  this  move- 
ment to  the  general  revolutionary  movement  of 
which  it  is  a  part. 

The  conservative  reader  will  find  much  in  my 
book  that  is  grossly  objectionable;  the  radical 
reader  much  that  is  deplorably  inadequate.  But 
let  both  conservative  and  radical  bear  in  mind  that 
the  writer  of  the  book  is  not  a  partisan  but  an  ob- 
server. He  is  not  an  active  but  a  passive  agent  in 
present  history.  A  mere  looker-on  in  Vienna,  he 
has  endeavored  to  speak,  as  truly  as  he  can,  of  the 
things  which  he  has  seen  and  heard. 

In  conclusion  let  me  remind  my  reader  that  the 
blindness  of  the  possessing  classes  to  inevitable 
changes  has  caused  the  great  calamities  of  history. 
Let  us  all  bear  in  mind  the  wise  words  of  the  wise 
Bishop  Butler  of  Durham  when  he  said,  "  Things 
are  as  they  are  and  why  should  we  wish  to  be 
deceived." 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface .     .     .     .  vii 

CnAPTEB 

I     Social  Evolution  and  Revolution  ...  3 

II     The  Downfall  of  the  Father    ....  51 

III  Responsibility  of  the  Mother    ....  72 

IV  The  Emancipation  of  the  Children      .      .  92 
V    The  Out-Family  Woman 106 

VI     The  Revolt  of  the  Parasites    ....  133 
VII     The  Revolt  of  the  Workers     .      .      .      .161 

VIII     The  Slaves  of  the  Market 191 

IX    Working-Class  Religion 215 

X    Working-Class  Morality 236 

XI    Working-Class  Politics 256 

XII    Working-Class  Philosophy 281 

XIII    The  Coming  Age          . 303 

Appendix —  the  war  against  poverty       .  331 


THE  RISE 
OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 


THE  RISE  OF 
THE  WORKING-CLASS 


SOCIAL 
EVOLUTION    AND   REVOLUTION 

IT  is  a  truism  to  say  that  the  world  in  which  we 
live  is  a  changing  world.  This  fact  has  given 
his  theme  to  the  singer,  his  complaint  to  the 
prophet,  and  his  problem  to  the  thinker.  Newman 
says  the  world  changes  and  changes  until  we  are 
sick  of  change.  Job  sings,  "  Man  that  is  born  of 
woman  hath  but  a  short  time  to  live,  he  passeth 
away  like  a  shadow  and  never  continueth  in  one 
stay."  Heracleitus  based  his  philosophy  of  life 
upon  the  fact  of  change.  Change,  he  said,  is  the 
only  reality,  all  things  are  in  flux,  and  the  only 
affirmation  that  can  be  made  is  that  change  will 
come.  The  philosophy  of  Heracleitus  is  the  popu- 
lar philosophy  of  to-day.  It  has  been  revived  by 
Bergson  and  lies  at  the  base  of  the  pragmatism  of 
James  and  his  school. 

3 


4  THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

Science,  to  account  for  the  changes  that  are  thus 
transpiring  in  the  world,  takes  note  of  two  proc- 
esses :  the  process  of  evolution  and  the  process  of 
revolution.  We  hear  people  saying  continually, 
when  speaking  of  the  changes  that  are  to  come  in 
the  world,  that  they  are  evolutionists  but  not  revo- 
lutionists. They  think  that  they  have  said  a  wise 
thing  when  they  have  so  spoken.  But  the  fact  is 
that  the  evolutionist  must  he  a  revolutionist,  and 
the  revolutionist  must  in  turn  become  an  evolution- 
ist. Each  process  is  the  occasion  of  the  other. 
Evolution  is  the  word  we  use  to  describe  the  orderly 
process  by  which  an  organism  changes  from  within, 
the  process  of  growth.  Eevolution  is  the  word  that 
we  use  to  describe  the  change  that  takes  place  in 
the  outward  condition  of  the  organism.  Evolution 
means  change  in  structure;  revolution  means 
change  in  environment.  Take,  for  instance,  the  life 
history  of  the  human  form.  It  begins  with  a  revo- 
lutionary act :  the  instant  of  conception  is  a  revolu- 
tionary moment  in  the  life  of  the  mother,  an  event 
has  occurred  within  her  reproductive  organs  which 
changes  entirely  their  condition.  With  that  event 
a  process  begins  within  her  which  goes  on  until  it 
has  accomplished  the  work  of  building  up  the  per- 
fect human  form. 

This  marvelous  process  is  evolutionary.  If 
everything  is  favorable  to  the  process,  and  no  acci- 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  EEVOLUTION       5 

dents  occur,. in  due  time  a  human  being  is  brought 
to  perfection  so  far  as  its  structure  is  concerned. 
Its  brain,  its  heart,  its  vital  organs,  its  organs  of 
perception,  locomotion,  and  digestion,  are  all  the 
outcome  of  this  evolutionary  process.  Now,  when 
this  work  is  done,  the  evolutionary  process  ceases 
and  a  revolutionary  event  occurs.  As  it  can  no 
longer  exist  in  the  environment  of  the  womb,  na- 
ture sets  about  the  task  of  expelling  the  organism 
from  its  pre-natal  home  into  a  world  prepared  for 
it.  The  act  of  birth  is  purely  revolutionary  in  its 
character.  It  makes  no  change  whatever  in  the 
structure  of  the  organism,  but  it  makes  a  vital  and 
radical  change  in  its  condition.  By  this  revolu- 
tionary method,  which  is  always  accompanied  by 
violence,  the  human  being  passes  from  one  condi- 
tion into  another ;  thus  we  are  able  to  see  the  rela- 
tion of  evolution  to  revolution.  This  relation  of 
the  two  forces  to  each  other  holds  wherever  life 
prevails. 

Life  is  ever  under  subjection  to  them.  When 
man  comes  into  the  outer  world  he  begins  a  proc- 
ess of  evolution;  by  the  appropriation  and  assimi- 
lation of  food  he  enlarges  his  organic  life,  and  by 
reason  of  this  he  increases  in  stature  and  wisdom. 
Beginning  as  a  babe  in  arms,  he  grows  to  the 
stature  of  a  man, —  everything  that  he  sees  and 
hears,  enlarges  his  mind;  everything  that  he  eats 


6  THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

and  drinks,  up  to  a  certain  point,  increases  his  flesh, 
and  bone.  Throughout  this  process  man  is  sub- 
ject to  a  succession  of  minor  revolutions.  As  an 
infant  in  arms  he  has  no  capacity  for  self-move- 
ment, he  is  carried  to  and  fro,  he  is  fed  from  the 
breast  or  the  bottle;  he  is  on  the  plane  that  just 
distinguishes  animal  from  vegetable  life.  At  some 
period  in  his  infancy  he  begins  to  rebel  against  this, 
he  struggles  out  of  the  arms  of  his  nurse  to  the 
floor  and  creeps ;  he  has  accomplished  the  first  revo- 
lutionary act  of  his  life.  He  then  begins  by  the 
exercise  of  his  muscles  an  evolutionary  process, 
which  ends  by  his  standing  upright  on  his  feet  and 
gives  him  the  freedom  of  the  world.  For  many 
years  a  man  finds  himself  under  tutors  and  gov- 
ernors who  tell  him  what  to  think  and  what  to  say. 
He  grows  up  in  the  environment  of  the  family.  He 
has  a  father  and  a  mother  to  guide  him,  and  he  is 
subject  to  their  authority.  But  sooner  or  later 
there  comes  a  time  when  he  rebels  against  this  sub- 
jection. This  struggle  on  the  part  of  the  child  to 
free  itself  from  parental  control  is  more  or  less  vio- 
lent and  covers  a  period  of  years.  It  is  one  of  the 
tragedies  of  human  life.  The  story  of  it  is  told  in 
that  wonderful  book,  Father  and  Son,  by  Edmund 
Gosse.  In  ancient  times,  and  in  some  races  of  the 
present  day,  man  never  fully  released  himself  from 
the  family  authority.     Among  the  Chinese  he  is  to 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  EEVOLUTION       7 

his  old  age,  as  long  as  his  father  lives,  under  that 
control.  This  revolt  of  man  against  parental  con- 
trol is  necessary  because  he  has  developed  within 
himself  forces  that  demand  expression.  He  wishes 
to  be  not  a  son  but  a  father,  not  a  hearer  but  a 
teller.  In  order  to  gratify  these  demands  of  his 
nature,  he  enters  into  relationship  with  a  woman, 
not  of  his  family.  His  act  is  revolutionary.  It 
changes  not  his  structure  but  his  condition.  When 
he  has  once  entered  into  this  relation,  by  the  or- 
derly process  of  evolution  he  in  turn  produces  a 
family.  He  becomes  the  father  of  children,  and  a 
man  among  men.  He  goes  on  in  this  evolutionary 
process  for  a  number  of  years,  and  then  he  finds 
himself  subject  to  strange  and  disquieting  struc- 
tural changes.  The  evolutionary  process,  instead 
of  building  up,  begins  to  break  down;  instead  of 
progressing  it  is  arrested;  and  this  goes  on  until 
it  is  no  longer  possible  for  the  living  force  to  use 
the  old  organism;  then  another  revolution  occurs. 
The  life  force  ceases  to  animate  the  organism  and 
the  man  dies.  The  organism  perishes,  and  a  great 
cycle  in  the  evolutionary-revolutionary  process  has 
been  accomplished. 

Now  what  is  true  of  the  individual  man  is  true 
of  the  various  forms  of  society  under  which  man 
has  lived  and  is  living.  Human  society  has  passed 
and  is  passing  constantly  through  evolutionary  and 


8  THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

revolutionary  stages,  the  one  consequent  upon  the 
other. 

Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  the  evolutionary  and 
revolutionary  processes  have  abandoned  the  phys- 
ical and  intellectual  structure  of  man  to  take  up 
the  task  of  social  evolution  and  revolution.  Phys- 
ical evolution  accomplished  its  work  ages  ago. 
Man,  as  long  as  he  continues  to  exist,  will  not  be 
subject,  in  all  probability,  to  any  radical  change  in 
his  physical  organism.  He  will  be  the  two-legged, 
upright  being,  with  two  short  arms  ending  in  a 
hand  with  four  fingers  and  a  thumb;  he  will  have 
a  head  on  his  shoulders,  with  eyes  and  ears,  nose, 
mouth  and  chin;  he  will  have  a  beating  heart  and 
breathing  lungs,  a  liver  that  secretes  bile,  a  stom- 
ach that  chemically  digests  food,  intestines  that 
carry  away  the  waste;  he  will  have  a  system  of 
veins  to  carry  his  food-supply  to  the  various  parts 
of  his  body;  a  nervous  system  as  the  organ  of  his 
will  to  direct  and  control  his  various  bodily  func- 
tions. All  these  have  been  evolved  and  will  prob- 
ably never  be  greatly  changed.  They  can  be  per- 
fected to  a  degree,  but  no  revolution  will  take  place 
in  the  human  structure.  The  ganglion  called  the 
brain  will  dominate  the  whole  structure  as  its  con- 
trolling, directing  force;  the  heart  will  do  the 
pumping;  the  lungs  the  breathing;  the  stomach  the 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION   9 

digesting;  the  feet  and  legs  the  walking;  the  hands 
the  handling. 

It  is  also  true  that  the  intellectual  organism  of 
man  has  passed  in  all  essentials  beyond  the  reach 
of  either  the  evolutionary  or  the  revolutionary 
process.  The  mind  is  a  finished  product;  it  was 
perfected  thousands  of  years  ago;  its  faculties  of 
perception  and  apprehension,  of  memory  and  rea- 
son, of  language,  with  the  consequent  power  of  ab- 
straction, are  very  ancient.  No  new  faculty  has 
been  added  to  the  mind  of  man  within  the  historic 
period.  It  is  an  error  to  believe  that  the  moderns 
discovered  a  new  way  of  thinking.  From  the  be- 
ginning, man  has  reasoned  from  the  known  to  the 
unknown ;  his  senses  have  furnished  to  him  the  raw 
material  of  thought,  and  his  mind  has  turned  that 
raw  material  into  the  intellectual  product.  All 
we  have  done  is  to  increase  the  range  of  faculty. 
Each  generation,  because  of  the  evolution  of  the 
faculty  of  memory  and  of  language,  has  bequeathed 
a  heritage  to  the  succeeding  generation,  and  as  a 
consequence  man  has  increased  in  knowledge;  but 
it  can  hardly  be  said  that  he  has  increased  at  all 
in  the  capacities  and  powers  of  his  mind.  There 
will  probably  never  be  a  greater  poet  than  Homer; 
a  greater  pure  thinker  than  Aristotle,  or  Plato. 
The  group  of  men  that  surrounded  Pericles  when 


10  THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

the  Athenian  civilization  flowered  were  in  posses- 
sion of  intellects  beyond  which  mere  intellect  will, 
probably,  never  go. 

The  evolutionary-revolutionary  process  has  let  go 
the  physical  and  the  intellectual  and  has  taken  up 
the  social.  Man  is  imperfect  to-day,  not  physically, 
nor  intellectually,  but  socially.  He  has  not  yet 
evolved  a  society  in  which  he  can  properly  live. 
He  has  been  at  that  work  for  ages  and  is  still  at 
it.  He  has  passed  through  social  changes,  revolu- 
tionary in  their  character,  and  he  is  still  living  in 
a  revolutionary  age. 

When  man  emerged  into  conscious  life,  he  found 
himself  living  in  a  group.  It  was  his  relationship 
to  this  group  that  wTas  the  controlling  fact  in  his 
life  and  by  means  of  this  he  attained  to  con- 
sciousness. The  group  was  in  a  measure  struc- 
tureless. The  human  animal  herded  with  the  hu- 
man animal;  the  male  and  the  female  cohabited 
indiscriminately:  the  whole  purpose  of  the  herd 
was  to  eat  and  to  beget. 

The  first  social  act  of  construction  was  to  regu- 
late the  sexual  functions.  One  relationship  was 
readily  recognized :  the  mother  and  the  child  came 
to  know  each  other.  With  the  recognition  of  this 
fact,  society  in  its  organic  form  had  its  beginning. 
The  length  of  infancy  and  childhood  made  it  im- 
possible for  the  son  to  forget  the  mother,  or  the 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      11 

mother  the  son.  And  it  soon  became  a  social  cus- 
tom rigidly  enforced,  that  the  mother  and  the 
son  should  have  no  sexual  relations  with  each 
other. 

Slowly  the  herd  passed  into  a  tribe  or  gens;  this 
form  of  society  was  based  upon  kinship;  they  who 
belonged  to  it  were  of  one  blood.  In  the  earlier 
tribal  forms,  descent  was  recognized  through  the 
mother,  and  in  time  sexual  relationship  was  regu- 
lated on  the  horizontal  plane.  Men  and  women 
could  never  cohabit  above  or  below  their  genera- 
tion. All  the  brothers  were  the  common  husbands 
of  all  the  sisters;  and  all  the  sisters  the  common 
wives  of  the  brothers  j1  but  they  could  not  hold  sex- 
ual relationship  either  with  fathers  or  mothers,  or 
with  sons  or  daughters.  This  social  organism  was 
common  to  all  ancient  humanity.  It  was  slowly 
modified  in  various  directions,  but  as  long  as  the 
tribal  form  of  organism  prevailed  these  principles 
of  sexual  relation  were  more  or  less  enforced. 

Industrially  the  tribe  was  a  unit.  It  had  in 
the  beginning  a  common  table.  Not  that  each  man 
did  not  appropriate  food  to  himself,  but  he  did 
this  in  the  presence  of  the  herd;  and  if  he  appro- 
priated at  any  given  time  more  than  he  could  con- 
sume, he  had  in  that  no  property  right  and  he  held 

i  During  the  tribal  period  all  the  men  of  a  given  genera- 
tion within  the  tribe  were  brothers,  all  the  women  sisters. 


12         THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

it  at  the  mercy  of  the  herd,  just  as  the  higher  ani- 
mals do  to-day. 

With  the  restrictions  mentioned,  the  women 
were  the  common  right  of  the  men,  and  the  men 
of  the  women.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  private 
or  personal  property,  except  in  mere  objects  of 
personal  use  and  adornment.  This  form  of  social 
structure  is  probably  the  one  that  existed  for  the 
longest  time  and  has  had  the  greatest  influence 
upon  the  development  and  history  of  the  race.  It 
must  always  be  borne  in  mind  that  because  of  this, 
man  is  and  always  must  be  a  group  animal.  He 
lives  in  society.  In  the  ancient  group,  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  society  were  one :  the  individual  had 
no  freedom  apart  from  the  tribe.  He  belonged  to 
the  tribe  as  a  cell  belongs  to  the  body.  He  sub- 
mitted, from  the  beginning  of  his  life  to  the  end  of 
it,  to  the  law  of  the  pack.  To  kill  a  member  of  the 
tribe  was  a  crime,  to  kill  a  member  of  another 
tribe  was  a  virtue  of  the  highest  order;  to  live  in 
luxury  with  the  tribe  at  the  expense  of  other  tribes 
was  righteous.  To  feed  oneself  at  the  expense  of 
one's  own  tribe  was  an  offense,  punishable  with 
death.  During  the  tribal  period,  when  there  was 
starvation  in  the  camp  the  chief  went  hungry. 

There  was  leadership  in  the  tribe,  but  not  mas- 
tership. The  tribe  followed  the  leaders  of  its  own 
choosing.     In  the  earliest  period  women  were  on  an 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      13 

equality  with  men ;  they  met  with  them  in  the  coun- 
cils of  the  tribes,  and  the  only  difference  existing 
was  a  difference  of  occupation.  The  men  did  for 
the  most  part  the  hunting  and  the  fighting,  and 
the  women  had  the  care  of  the  children  and  did  the 
work  of  preparing  the  meals  and  caring  for  what 
we  now  call  the  domestic  affairs  of  the  tribe. 

At  some  period  back  of  the  historical  period  the 
social  organism  of  the  tribe  was  displaced  by  that 
of  the  family.  This  occurred  after  the  capture  of 
fire,  the  domestication  of  animals,  and  the  discov- 
ery and  practice  of  the  arts  and  science  of  agricul- 
ture. When  these  things  had  been  accomplished, 
the  relationship  between  man  and  woman  was 
changed  structurally.  A  revolution  of  the  first 
importance  in  human  society  was  accomplished. 
The  agnatic  family  came  into  existence.  Man,  who 
up  to  this  time  had  been  neither  a  husband  nor  a 
father,  but  simply  the  male  of  the  species  —  a  wild 
beast  wandering  with  the  wild  beasts  of  the  forest 
—  became  domesticated.  This  revolution  was  not 
accomplished  without  a  struggle.  Nor  did  it  oc- 
cur until  the  old  tribal  forms  had  been  more  or  less 
shattered.  The  war  of  tribe  upon  tribe,  the  in- 
crease of  population  within  given  areas,  the  con- 
stant effort  to  secure  more  perfect  social  organ- 
ism, were  the  evolutionary  processes  at  work  to 
bring  about  the  great  change  in  human  relation- 


14         THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

ship.  It  has  been  until  recent  times  the  common 
belief  that  tie  order  of  social  progress  was  from  the 
family  to  the  tribe,  and  from  the  tribe  to  the  State. 
This,  however,  is  not  now  the  opinion  of  authori- 
ties on  this  subject.  The  line  of  progress  was  from 
the  tribe  to  the  family  and  from  the  family  to  the 
State.1 

The  family  was  cut  out  of  the  tribe.  It  could 
not  come  into  existence  until  man  had  ceased  to 
be  a  wandering  animal  and  had  acquired  a  settled 
abode.  The  relationship  in  the  tribal  time  be- 
tween the  man  and  the  woman  was  a  temporary 
relationship,  and  he  was  indeed,  in  those  days,  a 
wise  child  who  knew  his  own  father.  The  women 
made  their  choice  of  males  upon  a  principle  of 
sexual  selection  that  gave  to  the  braver  and 
stronger  males  a  preference.  The  union  of  the 
man  and  the  woman  had  a  tendency  to  become  more 
and  more  permanent,  but  it  was  not  until  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  family  that  the  right  of  the 
man  to  exclusive  cohabitation  with  a  given  woman 
became  first  a  social  and  then  a  legal  right. 

With  the  establishment  of  the  family  as  the  so- 
cial unit  there  came  into  existence  a  new  form  of 
relation  and  a  new  code  of  laws.  The  man  coming 
home  from  his  warfare  and  his  hunting  found  a 
fire  on  the  hearth  and  he  found  a  cake  on  the  ashes 

i  Morgan's  Ancient  Society  (Chas.  H.  Kerr  &  Co.),  page  293. 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION"  AND  REVOLUTION      15 

and  he  made  himself  comfortable  and  took  posses- 
sion. Agriculture  gave  him  a  permanent  food- 
supply.  It  was  no  longer  necessary  for  him  to 
wander  far  from  home.  He  could  feed  himself  and 
his  beasts  with  the  product  of  his  land,  and  so  man 
became  a  land-holder  and  a  land-owner,  and  it  was 
upon  this  fact  that  the  family  was  based. 

The  family  was  a  social  group  living  in  one  place 
and  having  exclusive  use  of  a  given  area  of  land. 
Over  this  group  the  father  was  the  absolute  lord 
and  master.  He  owned  not  only  the  land  but  also 
all  the  living  creatures  upon  the  land,  including 
the  women  and  the  children.  His  power  over  his 
dominion  was  absolute,  so  far  as  any  power  can  be 
absolute.  It  was  limited  only  by  the  fact  that  in 
order  to  live  himself  he  had  to  let  others  live  and  so 
had  to  feed  and  care  for  those  who  were  subject  to 
his  control;  but  the  family  law  permitted  him  to 
do  away  with  any  member  of  the  family  who  in  his 
judgment  was  injurious  to  the  family  life. 

The  ancient  family,  while  it  is  the  source  of  the 
modern  family,  differed  from  it  so  essentially  that 
the  two  ought  really  not  to  bear  the  same  name. 
Our  notion  of  the  family  is  that  of  a  single  man  and 
woman  joined  together  in  wedlock,  each  having  a 
moral  and  legal  right  to  exclusive  cohabitation 
with  the  other,  and  the  parents  of  children  which 
each  recognizes  as  his  and  her  own ;  this  little  group 


16         THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

increases  with  the  birth  of  children  until  the  time 
of  child-bearing  on  the  part  of  the  mother  ceases 
and  then  the  family  begins  to  contract. 

The  children  as  they  grow  up  leave  the  family 
home  and  go  out  into  the  world.  This  process 
goes  on  until  the  original  elements  of  the  family, 
the  man  and  the  woman,  sit  together  as  Darby  and 
Joan,  bound  no  longer  by  any  desire  for  each 
other's  sexual  company,  but  held  by  force  of  habit 
and  ripened  affection.  This  is  the  ideal  family 
in  modern  times. 

The  ancient  family  was  a  far  different  organiza- 
tion. It  was  a  group  of  beings  under  a  govern- 
ment organized  for  the  holding  and  protection  of 
property.  The  owner  of  the  property  was  the  head 
of  the  family.  Under  the  family  law  he  had  ex- 
clusive right  to  sexual  relation  with  the  woman 
whom  he  chose  to  be  the  mother  of  his  heir,  but  the 
woman  did  not  under  the  family  law  have  the  right 
to  the  exclusive  sexual  company  of  her  husband. 
The  family  did  not  consist  simply  of  the  father  and 
the  mother  and  the  children,  but  also  of  a  large 
number  of  persons  who  were  held  as  slaves.  These 
persons  were  the  weaker  elements  of  the  popula- 
tion when  the  families  were  established.  The 
name  of  the  family  is  derived  from  the  word  fatnul 
taken  from  the  Oscan,  meaning  slave.1 

i  The  Oscan  was  a  rustic  dialect  of  the  Latin.     See  Ency- 
clopedia Britannica,  11th  Edition,  Vol.  10,  art.  Family. 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      17 

The  beginning  of  family  life  was  undoubtedly 
in  violence.  The  strong  man,  gathering  about  him- 
self a  few  weaker  men  and  followers,  seized  upon 
a  piece  of  land  and  protected  it  against  all  coiners. 
He  took  his  women  with  him  and  they  lived  to- 
gether in  close  communion  year  after  year.  It  was 
during  this  early  period  of  the  family  life  that  man 
became  conscious  of  his  fatherhood.  The  woman 
with  whom  he  lived  he  shut  away  from  all  other 
men;  this  woman  bore  a  child  that  could  be  none 
other  than  his  child.  This  conception  of  father- 
hood gave  rise  to  a  whole  world  of  new  thinking. 
It  was  the  central  thought  in  ancient  life.  It  was 
the  foundation  of  ancient  religion.  With  the  es- 
tablishment of  fatherhood,  with  its  possession  of 
children  and  of  land,  man  projected  himself  into 
time  and  space.  The  son  was  his  son,  continuing 
his  life.  The  land  was  his  land,  extending  his 
power.  The  wheat  growing  in  his  remotest  field 
was  his  wheat,  even  though  at  the  time  it  was  out 
of  the  reach  of  his  hand  or  his  bow.  Upon  these 
two  great  facts  human  society  organized  itself. 
Man  became  a  lord  of  life  and  a  lord  of  land.  The 
father  as  long  as  he  lived  was  the  lord  of  the  house 
and  when  he  died  became  the  god  of  the  house. 
The  family  was  an  industrial  unit,  unified  in  the 
father.  The  purpose  of  the  family  was  to  provide 
for  the  two  great  necessities  of  life,  food  and  chil- 


18         THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

dren.  Without  food  the  individual  dies,  without 
children  the  race  perishes.  The  family  was  evolved 
by  the  most  advanced  race  of  men,  and  because  of 
that  evolution  the  race  in  which  the  family  orig- 
inated has  become  the  dominant  race  of  the  world. 

The  revolution  that  carried  mankind  from  the 
tribal  to  the  family  organization  is  written  only  in 
surviving  customs,  habits,  thoughts,  and  feelings 
of  the  ancient  tribal  period  that  have  survived  into 
later  times. 

The  family,  being  of  comparatively  recent  origin 
and  of  limited  area,  has  never  been  able  fully  to 
establish  itself  as  the  only  institution  for  the  pro- 
curing of  food  and  the  production  of  children.  In 
its  more  perfect  form  it  belongs  only  to  compara- 
tively modern  times  and  only  to  one  great  race  of 
men.  The  family  is  Aryan  in  its  origin,  Aryan  in 
its  history,  Aryan  in  its  language  and  custom. 
The  Aryan  race  in  all  probability  had  its  origin  in 
the  uplands  of  middle  Asia,  along  the  northern  slope 
of  the  Persian  hills.  There,  where  the  land  was 
rich  and  well  watered,  agriculture  nourished.  The 
land  was  a  source  of  wealth,  and  the  ownership  of 
the  land  the  basis  of  the  family  institution.  The 
family  was  developed  in  all  its  organic  functions 
before  the  first  great  dispersion  of  the  Aryan  race. 
The  names  given  to  the  different  organs  of  family 
life  are  all  of  Aryan  origin,  father,  mother,  and 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      19 

daughter;  as  they  are  in  our  language  to-day,  they 
are  traceable  to  the  language  spoken  by  the  Aryan 
before  he  separated  and  gave  rise  to  the  Indian,  the 
Persian,  the  Greek,  the  Roman,  and  the  German. 

With  every  migration  the  Aryan  carried  with 
him  the  family  form  and  the  family  law.  The 
great  civilizations  of  the  West,  the  Greek  and  the 
Eoman,  were  based  upon  the  family  as  the  economic 
unit.  Let  us  call  to  mind  again  that  the  ancient 
family  existed  primarily  for  the  purpose  of  pro- 
ducing food  for  the  family  consumption ;  also,  that 
the  family  existed  for  the  purpose  of  continuing 
itself.  The  more  ancient  the  family,  the  greater 
the  family. 

The  State  came  into  existence  through  the  desire 
of  the  family  for  greater  protection.  The  constant 
competition  of  family  with  family  led  to  the  de- 
struction of  the  weaker  families  and  their  absorp- 
tion into  the  greater.  On  this  account  the  heads 
of  the  families  combined  for  the  purposes  of  mu- 
tual protection.  The  family  was  the  unit  of  the 
State,  the  head  of  the  family  was  the  representa- 
tive of  the  family  in  the  council  of  the  State.  For 
purposes  of  protection  the  families,  instead  of  liv- 
ing each  one  on  its  own  land,  congregated  in  a  cen- 
ter, built  around  that  center  a  wall  —  and  so  gave 
rise  to  the  city-state  of  ancient  times.  The  story  of 
the  city-state  is  the  history  of  the  rise  of  a  new 


20         THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

conception  of  society.  Ancient  society  was  based 
altogether  upon  the  principle  of  kinship.  They 
who  belonged  to  the  organism  were  of  one  blood. 
Even  the  slaves  were  in  a  measure  incorporated 
into  the  organism  by  artificial  processes  of  adop- 
tion and  so  they  acquired  certain  rights  of  blood. 
They  were  members  of  the  household  and  members 
of  tribes.  The  family  was  a  continuance  of  the 
tribal  blood-relationship  upon  a  narrower  plan,  and 
with  the  introduction  of  a  new  element:  namely, 
the  exclusive  possession  of  a  given  territory.  The 
city-state  in  its  origin  was  an  enlargement  of  the 
family  idea.  Blood  was  still  a  test ;  but  it  became, 
instead  of  the  primary  element  in  social  life,  the 
secondary.  Territory,  instead  of  blood,  was  the 
essential  principle  of  the  political  organism.  The 
given  city  had  jurisdiction  over  an  area  compre- 
hending all  the  land  owned  by  all  the  citizens  of 
the  city.  It  defended  this  land  against  all  comers, 
and  when  a  city  was  conquered,  then  the  land 
passed  over  to  the  conqueror  and  the  families  of  the 
conquered  city  became  the  slaves  of  the  victor. 

This  new  conception  effected  a  revolution  in  hu- 
man society.  The  State  gradually  encroached  on 
the  family.  It  limited  the  range  of  the  family 
law.  Because  the  State  was  organized  for  purposes 
of  protection,  offensive  and  defensive,  it  demanded 
the  services  of  all  the  men;  and  as  a  male  child 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      21 

came  into  youth  and  manhood  he  escaped  in  a  de- 
gree from  the  lordship  of  his  father  and  passed  un- 
der the  authority  of  the  State.  This  was  the  first 
great  assault  made  upon  the  ancient  family  or- 
ganization. It  was  a  bloodless  revolution.  It 
came  about  because  the  heads  of  the  household  saw 
that  their  safety  lay  in  granting  to  their  sons  a 
certain  amount  of  individuality  and  freedom.  But 
this  was  a  very  limited  revolution.  The  relation 
of  the  son  to  the  father  was  still  the  primary  re- 
lation, and  the  women  and  the  children  and  the 
slaves  were  not  in  the  slightest  degree  affected  by 
it.  They  remain  to  the  close  of  the  great  family- 
period  subject  to  the  authority  of  the  father.  Down 
almost  to  modern  times  the  father  has  had  abso- 
lute control  of  the  wife  and  the  children  and  the 
household  servants;  their  happiness  has  depended 
upon  his  will.  They  have  been  subject  to  his  pun- 
ishment without  appeal,  and  he  has  been  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  women  and  the  minors  in  all  that 
relates  to  public  affairs. 

Fustel  de  Coulanges  in  his  great  book,  The  An- 
cient City,  expresses  his  surprise  that  the  laws 
of  the  family  endured  so  long,  being  as  they  were 
a  hindrance  to  the  full  development  of  the  State. 
His  explanation  is  that  the  family  laws  were  in  ex- 
istence long  before  the  State  had  its  origin  and  the 
State  was  powerless  to  change  these  ancient  cus- 


22  THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

toms.  Up  to  the  threshold  of  the  house  the  State 
could  go,  beyond  that  it  dared  not  step.  We  have 
this  fact  expressed  by  the  saying  that  the  English- 
man's home  is  his  castle.  He  has  rights  within 
it  which  he  will  defend  against  all  comers;  the 
chief  right  is  to  govern  the  members  of  his  house- 
hold and  to  exploit  the  property  of  his  household 
according  to  his  own  will,  without  let  or  hindrance. 
The  reason  for  the  continuance  of  the  family 
with  its  laws  and  customs  for  so  long  a  period  is 
the  fact  that  during  all  that  time  and  down  to  the 
present,  the  family  was  the  industrial  unit.  It 
was  the  factory  and  the  storehouse  of  the  world. 
The  family  worked  together  to  produce  food,  cloth- 
ing, and  shelter.  It  was  upon  the  surplus  of  the 
family  that  the  State  existed.  It  was  the  inter- 
change on  the  part  of  families  of  their  various 
products  that  gave  rise  to  commerce  with  all  that 
that  implies ;  but  we  must  never  forget  that  all  the 
essentials  of  life  were  produced  by  the  family  for 
the  family,  and  that  the  family  necessarily  appro- 
priated to  itself  these  necessities  until  its  own 
wants  were  satisfied  and  then  gave  of  what  was  left 
over  for  the  uses  of  the  State  and  the  market.  This 
surplus  of  the  family  was  at  the  beginning  the  sup- 
port of  religion,  of  politics,  and  of  art,  so  that  the 
family  was  protected  because  of  its  enormous  in- 
dustrial importance. 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      23 

The  family,,  however,  was  surrounded  from  the 
first  by  an  unorganized  human  element  which  it 
was  not  able  to  assimilate.  Men  and  women  un- 
duly oppressed  by  the  family-government  made 
their  escape  into  the  wilderness  and  there  propa- 
gated a  population  of  family-outlaws.  Tribes  that 
were  never  able  to  pass  into  the  higher  order  of  life 
were  elements  of  disorder  and  danger  to  the  family 
institution.  This  out-family  population  increased 
with  great  rapidity  in  the  richer  regions  of  the 
world.  In  such  cities  as  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  and 
later  in  the  cities  in  western  Asia,  Egypt,  Greece, 
and  Italy,  there  was  a  very  large  population  that 
was  not  included  in  any  family  organization.  The 
cities  themselves  became  slave-owners;  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  city  of  Athens  owned  silver-mines  and 
worked  the  silver-mines  by  its  own  slaves.  Out  of 
this  slave  population  were  formed  the  great  mili- 
tary establishments  of  the  Western  World.  Very 
early  the  possessing-classes  hit  upon  the  plan  of 
dividing  the  laboring-classes  into  two  parties  —  the 
military  and  the  domestic.  To  the  soldier  were 
granted  certain  freedoms  and  privileges  which  were 
not  allowed  to  the  domestic  and  city  slave.  The 
soldier  was  ready  to  kill  his  fellow-slave  in  defense 
of  his  own  position,  and  that  he  is  ready  to  do  even 
to  this  day. 

This  state  of  affairs  gave  rise  to  another  revolu- 


24         THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

tion  in  the  social  organism  of  humanity.  A  city- 
state  sending  its  armies  to  protect  its  own  territory 
not  only  acted  upon  the  defensive  but  also  upon  the 
offensive.  To  render  its  possessions  more  secure, 
it  robbed  the  neighboring  States  of  their  territory 
and  added  this  to  its  own  domain.  In  some  cases 
it  simply  subjugated  other  cities  and  made  them 
tributary  to  itself. 

This  aggression  on  the  part  of  the  given  city  re- 
sulted in  the  imperialistic  system,  which  gave  to 
the  military  power  the  dominant  place  in  the  gov- 
ernment and  which  reduced  vast  populations  into 
subjection  to  a  single  will. 

Imperialism  was  the  last  phase  of  ancient  civili- 
zation. Its  effect  upon  the  family  and  the  State 
was  disastrous.  Whole  populations  were  carried 
away  into  captivity  and  scattered  without  any  re- 
gard to  family  ties.  The  captives  taken  in  wars 
furnished  labor-power  at  a  nominal  cost  to  the 
leaders  of  the  armies.  One  result  of  this  was  the 
driving  out  of  the  small  farmer  and  the  concentra- 
tion of  great  land-holdings  under  the  control  of  a 
single  man.  The  land-owner  and  the  land-worker 
were  no  longer  the  same  person.  The  land-owner 
was  simply  the  lord  of  the  land,  the  land-worker 
the  user  of  the  land  upon  the  terms  granted  by  the 
lord.  The  city-state  could  not  long  survive  under 
the  imperial  regime.     It  had  its  origin  in  the  civili- 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      25 

zation  of  the  Mediterranean  basin  and  it  perished 
with  that  civilization. 

Rome  reduced  all  of  the  cities  of  that  region  to 
one  common  subjection,  it  carried  their  gods  cap- 
tive to  its  own  Pantheon.  It  made  the  worship  of 
the  emperor  the  one  religion  of  all  the  peoples  of 
the  Empire;  it  subordinated  the  welfare  of  the 
family  to  the  needs  and  caprices  of  the  Empire; 
by  excessive  taxation  it  impoverished  the  provinces, 
and  in  the  end  that  great  civilization,  having  no 
economic  unit,  perished  literally  of  starvation.  It 
was  not  the  northern  barbarian  who  conquered 
Rome,  Rome  conquered  herself.  Like  the  fabled 
gods,  she  consumed  her  own  children,  and  her  end 
was  the  necessary  result  of  the  policy  she  pursued. 

While  that  process  of  destruction  was  going  on, 
another  process  of  reconstruction  was  in  operation. 
The  great  salvation-religions  had  already  entered 
into  the  world.  These  new  faiths  were  demanded 
by  the  times.  Within,  the  Roman  Empire  was  a 
vast,  degraded,  disfranchised  population.  A  pop- 
ulation steeped  in  misery,  starving  for  the  bare  ne- 
cessities of  life ;  trampled  on,  wasted  by  war,  it  was 
crying  aloud  to  Heaven  for  redress.  Among  all 
the  religions  competing  within  that  population  one 
prevailed.  Christianity  had  within  itself  the  ele- 
mental principles  necessary  for  reconstruction.  It 
unified  this  population  upon  the  family  principle. 


26         THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

It  asserted  a  common  parentage.  It  saw  in  its 
God  the  origin  of  life;  it  made  the  human  parent 
simply  the  instrument  of  the  Divine  parent,  It 
cried :  "  Call  no  man  father  upon  earth,  for  we 
have  one  Father  in  Heaven."  As  a  consequence 
of  this  divine  fatherhood,  it  asserted  a  human  broth- 
erhood. It  declared  that  all  men  were  related  to 
each  other  by  ties  of  blood  and  because  of  this 
were  morally  bound  to  help  one  another.  It  made 
cooperation  the  law  of  its  being.  In  the  beginning, 
in  the  freshness  of  its  enthusiasm,  its  members 
said,  each  man  for  himself,  that  none  of  the  things 
which  he  possessed  were  his  own,  but  that  they 
held  all  things  in  common.  It  was  a  saying  of  one 
of  their  greatest  writers,  the  writer  of  the  Epistle 
to  Diognetus,  "  We  have  a  common  table,  but  not 
a  common  bed."  This  saying  is  the  key  to  the 
earlier  period  of  Christianity.  Christianity  made 
war  against  the  principle  of  competition  which 
raged  so  fiercely  among  the  ancient  cities  until  it 
destroyed  them;  and  then  among  the  destroyers 
of  those  cities,  the  military  leaders  of  the  Eoman 
Empire,  until  they  likewise  perished. 

This  new  religion  reconstituted  the  family  upon 
a  narrower  basis,  it  did  not  indeed  have  the  family 
welfare  in  mind,  because  the  concern  of  this  or- 
ganization was  for  itself  and  its  individual  mem- 
bers.    Christianity  related  each  individual  to  God 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      27 

through  itself,  and  to  this  relation  it  subordinated 
all  others.  In  the  more  perfect  Christian  this  re- 
lation was  expected  to  drive  out  the  sexual  and  the 
patriotic  passions.  God  was  the  husband  and  the 
wife  and  the  country  of  the  true  Christian.  But 
stooping  to  human  weakness  Christianity  permit- 
ted the  members  of  its  organization  to  hold  prop- 
erty and  to  marry  wives.  The  holding  of  property 
related  the  Christian  to  the  State;  and  the  marry- 
ing a  wife,  to  the  family.  The  church  required, 
however,  that  a  man  should  control  both  these  pas- 
sions, the  passion  of  family  and  of  country,  by  the 
higher  passion  for  God ;  because  of  this  a  man  could 
be  the  husband  of  only  one  wife,  and  promiscuous 
indulgence  was  denied  him  as  inconsistent  with  his 
Christian  existence.  If  a  man  became  an  adulterer, 
or  a  whoremonger,  he  had  no  inheritance  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ  or  of  God.  The  effect  of  this 
teaching  was  to  bring  about  a  moral  revolution 
in  the  conceptions  of  the  Western  World,  so  far 
as  sexual  relationship  is  concerned.  The  Western 
World  has  admitted  the  validity  of  the  Christian 
contention,  and  has  required  that  a  man  shall  be 
the  husband  of  only  one  wife  and  that  only  the 
children  of  this  wife  can  be  called  his  children, 
and  so  has  established  that  ideal  of  the  family 
which  is  the  ideal  of  Western  civilization. 

The  Christian  movement  re-created  the  ancient 


28         THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

city-state.  Each  Christian  community  was  a  City 
of  God.  Wherever  it  was  located,  whether  in 
Corinth  or  in  Rome,  it  was  an  independent  organ- 
ism, controlling  its  own  affairs,  subject  only  to  the 
domination  of  the  Christian  tradition.  Because 
Christianity  followed  the  lines  of  ancient  organi- 
zation, it  progressed  with  great  rapidity.  Chris- 
tian churches  were  built  up  within  the  confines  of 
every  ancient  city  within  the  Roman  Empire,  and 
this  task  was  accomplished  in  the  short  space  of  a 
little  more  than  a  century.  So  that  when  the  old 
civilization  died  and  turned  to  ashes,  this  new 
civilization  rose  from  those  ashes  to  take  its  place. 
It  had  already  accomplished  two  things.  It  had 
restored  the  family  and  modified  the  family  idea, 
and  it  had  given  new  vitality  to  local  organiza- 
tion. 

With  the  break-up  of  the  Roman  Empire  this 
new  organization  stood  revealed  as  the  one  power 
capable  of  bringing  order  into  society.  From  the 
year  400  to  the  year  1300  the  Christian  Church  was 
the  great  central  and  centralizing  power  of  the 
Western  World.  The  church  Was  the  one  institu- 
tion that  commanded  the  attention,  the  adhesion, 
and  the  loyalty  of  the  people.  During  that  period 
the  church  was  the  representative  of  the  people. 
It  was  their  only  teacher.  It  was  the  only  force 
that  could  stand  between  them  and  the  brutalities 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      29 

that  were  then  rampant  in  the  outside  world.  Un- 
der the  shadow  of  the  church  the  family  was  re- 
stored to  its  ancient  place  as  the  economic  unit. 
Within  the  family,  as  in  former  times,  were  pro- 
duced all  the  things  that  the  family  consumed. 
Europe  reverted,  in  the  earlier  part  of  that  period, 
to  the  last  stage  of  barbarism.  Life  was  reduced 
to  barbaric  simplicity,  land  became  the  one  source 
of  wealth  and  agriculture  the  one  occupation. 
Fighting  was  the  employment  of  the  male,  and  do- 
mestic service  of  the  female.  Great  families  were 
established  who  based  their  power  upon  land-hold- 
ings. The  landlord  exercised  dominion  over  all 
the  occupants  of  his  land.  Some  were  the  yeoman 
tenants  and  some  were  simply  thralls,  serfs  of  the 
soil.  The  modern  nations  of  Western  Europe  were 
composed  of  the  elements  of  this  great  land-holding 
class  and  its  dependents.  The  land-holders  com- 
bined to  defend  their  territories  against  intrusion. 
Instead,  however,  of  congregating  in  cities,  in  the 
earlier  periods  they  built  a  castle  for  each  great 
land-holder  and  that  castle  dominated  the  terri- 
tory round  about  it.  The  great  struggle  of  the 
earlier  period  was  between  the  landlords.  Each 
endeavored  to  dominate  and  expropriate  the  other. 
In  this  way  were  built  up  the  principalities  and 
afterwards  the  kingdoms. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  warfare,  which  went  on 


30        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOBKING-CLASS 

without  intermission,  the  church  plied  its  task  of 
protecting  the  common  people  and  compelling  the 
lords  of  the  land  to  pay  some  obedience  to  the  moral 
law.  That  the  church  was  only  partially  success- 
ful in  her  work  needs  hardly  to  be  said.  She  her- 
self came  more  or  less  under  the  dominance  of  the 
landlords,  and  little  by  little  withdrew  herself  from 
the  common  people  and  made  her  alliance  with  the 
privileged  portions  of  society.  From  the  fall  of 
the  Empire  in  the  fifth  century,  to  the  crowning 
of  Charlemagne  at  the  end  of  the  year  800,  the  his- 
tory of  Europe  is  little  more  than  the  history  of 
this  struggle  or  competition  of  land-holder  with 
land-holder,  and  of  the  church  with  the  land-hold- 
ing class.  The  church  had  itself  become  a  great 
land-holder  and  had  entered  into  competition  with 
the  laity  for  the  possession  and  control  of  the  soil. 
It  was  this  fact  that  brought  on  the  great  struggle 
between  the  temporal  and  the  spiritual  powers, 
which  occupied  the  mind  and  exhausted  the 
strength  of  Europe  for  so  many  centuries. 

The  church  was  organized  by  this  time  upon  the 
imperial  basis;  the  stronger  churches  in  the  great 
cities  had  acquired  jurisdiction  over  the  smaller 
churches,  this  process  of  centralization  had  gone 
on  until  the  two  churches  of  Constantinople  and 
Rome  contended  for  the  mastery,  and  in  that  con- 
tention shattered  the  unity  of  Christendom,  setting 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      31 

up  the  rival  imperialisms  of  the  East  and  of  the 
West,  which  continue  to  this  day. 

In  the  West,  Rome  reigned  supreme,  organized 
religion  upon  strict  imperialistic  ideas,  centraliz- 
ing all  power  in  the  Pope  as  the  controller  and  ex- 
ponent of  the  Christian  community.  The  secular 
power  according  to  medieval  ideas  was  invested  in 
the  Caesar.  The  contention  on  the  part  of  the  sec- 
ular power  was  that  it  was  supreme  in  secular  af- 
fairs; while  the  spiritual  power  held  that  the  sec- 
ular was  the  servant  of  the  spiritual ;  this  doctrine 
was  finally  expressed  in  the  Bull  of  Boniface  VIII, 
JJnam  Sanctam; l  it  was  this  contention  of  the 
secular  with  the  spiritual  power  that  gave  oppor- 
tunity for  the  development  of  a  freer  Europe.  As 
in  ancient  times  an  unorganized  population  came 
into  existence  and  warred  against  the  system,  so 
now  a  new  element,  that  of  commerce,  entered  into 
competition  with  agriculture.  In  spite  of  the  con- 
tinual wars  of  the  land-holding  class  with  itself, 
certain  areas  of  peace  were  established.  These 
were  the  cities  which  the  commercial  class  built  for 
the  purposes  of  the  market.  The  rise  of  the  free 
city  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  Medieval 
World.  These  cities  began  to  flourish  soon  after 
the  Moslem  conquest  and  were  the  result  of  a  grow- 
ing complexity  of  living,  consequent  upon  the  in- 

i  Henderson's  Documents  of  the  Middle  Ages. 


32        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

troduction  of  luxuries  from  the  East.  They  were 
also  the  result  of  a  growing  division  of  labor.  The 
families  were  organized  upon  a  new  basis,  the  basis 
of  industry.  The  great  land-holding  classes  began 
to  seek  in  the  cities  the  supply  of  their  wants,  and 
the  citizens  became  members  of  crafts, —  silver- 
smiths, weavers,  and  the  like;  and  they  found  in 
their  occupation  the  industrial  basis  of  life,  and 
upon  this  they  established  their  family  existence. 
These  occupations  became  hereditary.  Father  and 
son  succeeded  each  other  in  the  possession  of  the 
industry,  just  as  they  had  succeeded  each  other  in 
the  possession  of  the  land.  The  land-holder  still 
claimed  authority  over  the  industrial  element  of 
the  population,  and  it  was  the  struggle  of  the  citi- 
zen or  burgher  with  the  landlord  that  wrote  the 
next  great  chapter  in  human  evolution  and  revolu- 
tion. 

The  church,  when  this  struggle  began,  being  a 
great  land-holder  allied  itself  with  the  land-holding 
class.  The  rapidly  growing  nationalities  with  their 
centralizing  governments  allied  themselves  with  the 
citizen  class,  and  it  was  the  struggle  between  these 
two  forces  that  brought  about  the  establishment 
of  the  Western  States  of  France,  England,  and 
Holland ;  the  downfall  of  the  universal  church,  and 
the  complete  extinction  of  *he  imperialistic  idea  in 
Western  Europe. 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      33 

This  struggle  had  its  dramatic  beginning  in  the 
great  contest  between  Fhilip  the  Fair,  of  France, 
and  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  When  Philip  the  Fair 
appealed  to  the  people  against  the  exactions  and 
tyrannies  of  the  Roman  See,  and  when,  as  a  conse- 
quence of  that  contention,  Sciarra  Colonna  and 
William  of  Nogaret  with  three  hundred  men  be- 
hind them  bearded  the  Papal  Power  in  the  person 
of  Boniface  VIII,  and  captured  the  Pope  in  his 
own  city  of  Anagni,  and  Sciarra  Colonna  smote  the 
Pope  in  the  face  with  his  mailed  fist  and  nothing 
happened  except  the  death  of  the  Pope,  then  the 
modern  world  came  violently  to  the  hour  of  its 
birth.  Those  birth-pangs  were  of  long  duration, 
and  in  the  process  of  the  birth  the  mother  died. 
Within  a  hundred  years  that  Medieval  World 
passed  away.  Imperialism,  feudalism  with  its  in- 
stitution of  chivalry,  universalism  with  its  domi- 
nance of  a  single  conception  of  religion  perished, 
and  in  their  place  came  nationalism  and  commer- 
cialism, with  their  accompaniment  of  freedom  of 
thought  and  conscience.  This  new  birth  came  with 
violence.  From  the  league  of  Smalkald  in  the  year 
1531  to  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  in  the  year  1648, 
Europe  was  one  vast  battlefield  between  the  con- 
tending civilizations.1 

When  this  conflict  ceased,  the  new  civilization 
i  Ranke,  History  of  The  League  of  Smalkald,  passim. 


34        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

controlled  northern  and  western  Europe ;  England, 
Scandinavia,  northern  Germany  were  lost  forever 
to  the  old,  and  were  in  possession  of  the  new. 

In  France,  in  Italy,  and  in  Spain  the  struggle 
continued  down  to  our  own  times,  and  only  within 
our  own  day  has  the  modern  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse been  able  to  establish  itself  in  these  Latinized 
countries ;  and  even  yet,  the  old  is  fighting  with  the 
new. 

Modern  civilization  is  based  upon  the  industrial 
conception  of  life.  Within  that  civilization  the 
land-owning  and  the  industrial  classes  have  been 
contending  for  supremacy.  In  the  earlier  period  of 
this  contention  the  industrial  classes  were  led  by 
the  burghers  or  citizens  of  the  great  industrial  cities 
of  Flanders,  Holland,  and  England.  It  was  this 
class  that  led  in  the  warfare  against  Rome,  which 
had  then  cast  in  its  lot  altogether  with  the  land- 
holders. This  is  the  most  tragic  of  all  the  conten- 
tions which  man  has  held  with  his  fellowman.  It 
is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  in  the  great  conflict 
of  the  burgher  with  the  landlord,  millions  of  human 
beings  perished  by  violence,  one  might  almost  say 
hundreds  of  millions,  and  billions  of  human  treas- 
ure were  trodden  under  foot  and  burned  by  fire. 
Before  this  contention  came  to  an  end,  Germany 
was  desolated,  the  Netherlands  were  again  restored 
to  the  sea;  England  lost  the  flower  of  its  ancient 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      35 

nobility;  and  France  experienced  the  most  violent 
revolutionary  movement  known  to  the  history  of 
the  world.  This  revolutionary  period  came  to  a 
close  with  the  revolutionary  wars  of  France  on  the 
field  of  Waterloo  in  1815. 

Then  the  industrial  classes  were  dominant,  and 
human  society  entered  upon  its  third  period  of 
structural  organization. 

The  first  period  resulted  in  a  tribal  organization 
based  upon  kinship  and  evolved  into  the  family 
organization  based  partly  upon  kinship  and  partly 
upon  property.  The  second  period  gave  rise  to  a 
political  organization  based  upon  territory;  this 
political  organization  had  the  family  as  its  unit. 
The  third  period,  in  which  we  ourselves  are  living, 
is  evolving  an  organization  based  upon  industry. 

The  establishment  of  the  industrial  class  as  the 
dominant  class  in  society  has  been  followed  by  a 
period  of  industrial  expansion,  both  intellectual 
and  physical,  which  has  made  of  the  modern  world 
an  entirely  new  wrorld.  The  intelligence  of  man- 
kind, diverted  from  the  occupations  of  war  and 
from  the  consideration  of  subtle  questions  of  phi- 
losophy and  religion,  has  given  itself  during  this 
period  to  an  examination  of  the  physical  universe 
in  its  relations  to  the  physical  life  of  man.  The 
earth  has  been  surveyed  from  pole  to  pole,  from 
meridian  to  meridian,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertain- 


36        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

ing  the  elements  contained  in  the  physical  globe 
that  build  up  physical  man.  These  elements  have 
been  exploited  for  the  uses  of  man,  and  wealth  has 
increased  so  that  to-day  man  has  a  standard  of  liv- 
ing impossible  in  ancient  times. 

The  modern  world  in  the  process  of  its  evolution 
has  developed  two  great  classes :  the  owners  and 
the  workers.  Those  who  are  in  possession  of  the 
land,  of  the  raw  material,  and  of  the  moving  capi- 
tal and  those  who  by  their  labor  reduce  the  raw 
materials  to  human  uses. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  period,  these  owners 
were  the  citizens  and  the  land-owners.  The  burgher 
class  of  the  various  cities,  having  reduced  the  land- 
owning class  to  a  reasonable  subjection,  allied  them- 
selves with  that  class  politically  and  socially,  took 
possession  of  the  existing  government  and  reduced 
the  working-class  to  subjection.  At  the  close  of 
the  revolutionary  period,  which  established  indus- 
trialism as  the  main  factor  in  life,  the  land-owning 
class  was  confirmed  in  its  titles  and  privileges. 
The  citizen  or  burgher  class  became  itself  largely 
a  land-holding  body.  Land  having  ceased  to  be 
the  main  source  of  wealth,  commerce  occupying 
that  place  of  privilege ;  the  merchant  was  the  equal 
and  in  some  respects  the  superior  of  the  landlord, 
and  it  is  the  merchant  who  to-day  rules  the  world. 

The  development  of  commerce  has  occasioned  an 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      37 

elaborate  financial  system  by  which  the  dealer  in 
credits  has  come  to  have  a  commanding  position  in 
the  commercial  class,  so  that  to-day  the  banker  is 
at  the  head  of  the  industrial  organism. 

Commerce  is  not  restricted  by  the  limitations  of 
kin  or  territory.  It  goes  into  every  land  and  makes 
use  of  every  man,  if  thereby  it  can  secure  profit  for 
itself.  Naturally  the  human  mind  has  been  occu- 
pied with  the  problem  of  making  the  work  of  com- 
merce more  easy  and  effective.  The  consequence 
is  that  we  have  to-day  systems  of  intercommunica- 
tion and  transportation  which  have  made  the  whole 
world  one.  A  few  artificial  restraints  in  the  way 
of  tariffs  still  exist,  but  in  spite  of  these  the  world 
is  one  great  market,  exploited  by  those  who  have  at 
their  command  the  instruments  of  production  and 
distribution.  Those  who  are  at  the  head  are  to- 
day called  kings,  princes,  and  barons,  holding  in 
popular  estimation  the  places  that  were  held  in 
former  times  by  those  who  bore  these  names  of 
honor. 

The  men  who  are  in  possession  command  human 
labor  and  are  able  to  divert  it  into  any  channel 
which  they  themselves  may  select.  Their  power  is 
in  a  measure  limited  by  the  fact  that  they  must 
employ  that  labor  in  the  first  instance  to  supply 
the  bare  necessities  of  all.  After  they  have  done 
this,  then  they  can,  and  they  do,  use  this  human 


38        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

labor  to  provide  luxuries  for  the  possessing-class. 
The  result  of  this  is  that  the  possessing-class  to- 
day has  a  wide  range  of  luxurious  living,  indulges 
itself  in  the  pomp  and  pride  of  life  to  an  extent 
never  before  possible  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

The  various  inventions  which  have  rendered  this 
possible  have  also  made  necessary  the  concentra- 
tion in  the  hands  of  a  few  dominant  men  of  the 
powers  controlling  the  production  and  distribution. 

A  new  form  of  organization  in  society  has  come 
into  existence.  It  is  that  legal  entity  known  as 
the  corporation.  These  corporations  are  govern- 
ments within  governments.  They  are  based  wholly 
upon  industry.  Their  purpose  is  to  exploit  indus- 
try and  to  reap  its  profits.  The  members  of  these 
organizations  may  not,  and  for  the  most  part  do 
not,  know  one  another.  They  have  no  personal 
relations  whatever;  they  are  bound  together  by 
no  tie  of  blood  or  country.  It  is  simply  the  pocket 
nerve  that  controls  them.  The  stockholder  need 
not,  and  for  the  most  part  does  not,  know  by 
what  methods  the  returns  upon  his  stock  are  se- 
cured; all  he  cares  for  is  the  returns,  and  he  de- 
mands that  these  returns  shall  be  as  large  as  possi- 
ble. Those  who  are  in  control  of  the  corporations 
hold  their  position  just  so  long  as  they  satisfy  the 
majority  of  the  stockholders.  When  dividends 
cease,  then  power  passes  from  the  heads  of  the  cor- 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  EEVOLUTION      39 

poration  and  they  fall.  It  is  this  that  has  given 
dramatic  interest  to  the  great  industrial  struggle  of 
modern  times.  Kings  have  been  fighting  kings; 
princes,  princes;  barons,  barons;  with  the  result 
that  the  more  fortunate  have  subdued  and  absorbed 
the  less  fortunate,  and  we  have  the  mighty  indus- 
trial aggregations  of  our  age,  under  the  supremacy 
of  the  industrial  magnates,  so  that  we  have  to-day 
a  parallel  to  the  classes  that  existed  in  the  Middle 
Ages. 

We  have  the  great  magnates,  the  lesser  magnates, 
their  satellites,  the  professional  class,  composing 
the  more  or  less  privileged  element  of  the  present 
social  organization.  These  enter  into  and  enjoy 
the  results  of  that  organization.  They  are  in  so- 
ciety, and  all  the  forces  of  society  minister  to  them. 
They  live  in  magnificence  in  comfortable  houses. 
They  eat  good,  substantial  food.  The  fruit  of  the 
vine  is  theirs,  they  delight  themselves  with  wine, 
women,  and  song.  They  exert  the  great  faculties 
of  the  mind  in  the  work  of  controlling  the  lives 
of  others.  They  have  the  glory  of  mastership; 
they  can  say  of  themselves  what  the  Psalmist  said 
of  God :  "  The  earth  is  ours  and  the  fullness  there- 
of " ;  they  are  the  gods  of  the  present  age. 

In  opposition  to  this  class  of  possessors  and  en- 
joyers  is  the  great  mass  of  men  and  women  who 
are   without   possession   and   without   enjoyment. 


40        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

These  are  they  who  by  their  work  and  their  la- 
bor produce  the  things  that  are  consumed  by  the 
others.  They  build  the  ships,  and  the  railway 
cars  and  locomotives;  they  make  all  the  machines, 
and  lay  the  foundations  and  raise  the  walls  of  the 
houses.  They  follow  the  plow  and  bend  over  the 
furrows  with  the  hoe ;  they  rise  up  early,  and  late 
take  rest,  and  eat  the  bread  of  carefulness.1 

This  great  mass  of  working-people  have  been  de- 
prived of  all  the  privileges  of  social  life.  They  do 
not  belong  to  society.  They  have  no  seat  at  the 
feast ;  they  wait  at  the  table.  Leisure  is  not  theirs ; 
they  cannot  loaf  and  become  acquainted  with  their 
own  souls;  they  cannot  enrich  their  intelligence 
with  the  wisdom  of  the  ages ;  they  are  shut  out  from 
the  possibilities  of  culture.  Because  of  their  dis- 
abilities they  are,  and  always  have  been,  a  despised, 
degraded  class.  The  taint  of  slavery  is  in  their 
blood.  They  have  been  so  long  under  the  whip 
and  scorn  of  the  master  that  sufferance  has  become 
the  badge  of  all  their  tribe.  The  working-man  and 
the  working-woman  were  lashed  with  the  whip  not 
so  long  ago ;  to-day  they  are  lashed  with  the  tongue. 

The  workers  receive  in  return  for  what  they  give 
only  the  barest  necessities  of  life;  they  eat  the 
coarsest  food,  of  which  they  have  an  insufficient 
quantity;  they  sleep  in  dark  and  narrow  rooms 

i  Psalm  127:3. 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      41 

where  air  is  denied  them.  They  are  clothed  in 
shoddy;  their  enjoyments  are  the  cheap  enjoy- 
ments of  those  who  have  not  yet  been  allowed  to 
taste  the  nobler  pleasures  of  life. 

We  see  them  by  the  thousands  in  all  our  great  in- 
dustrial centers,  underfed,  and  consequently  under- 
sized ;  pale,  listless,  seeking  relief  from  the  terrible 
monotony  of  their  lives  in  the  cheap  dissipation  of 
the  saloons  and  the  picture-show.  Not  only  are 
the  unskilled  workers  a  class  that  is  alarmingly 
on  the  increase,  deprived  of  what  the  better  class 
holds  to  be  the  goods  of  life,  but  what  little  they 
do  have  they  possess  under  the  most  uncertain  con- 
ditions. Their  only  source  of  income  is  their  job, 
and  their  job  is  not  their  own.  At  any  moment 
upon  the  mere  whim  or  caprice  of  their  masters 
their  job  may  be  taken  from  them  and  they  sent 
adrift,  jobless,  to  wander  as  vagabonds  on  the  face 
of  the  earth;  to  be  beaten  up  by  the  police,  to  be 
turned  away  from  the  back  door,  to  starve  with 
cold  and  hunger.  More  and  more  the  members  of 
this  class  are  finding  it  difficult  to  secure  the  bare 
necessities  of  life.  Hundreds  and  thousands  of 
them  in  such  cities  as  London,  Berlin,  Paris,  and 
New  York,  and  elsewhere  are  sinking  below  the 
line  of  sustenance.  They  are  dying  from  malnu- 
trition. Our  industrial  system  has  not  been  able 
to  give  these  people  a  permanent  place  in  its  or- 


43        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

ganization,  and  as  a  consequence  these  people  are 
dragging  our  civilization  down  to  their  level,  which 
is  the  level  of  the  despair,  dissolution,  and  death. 
In  the  period  of  tribal  organization  and  family  or- 
ganization, it  was  the  man  without  tribe  and  with- 
out family  who  multiplied  and  furnished  the 
strength  that  destroyed  the  ancient  family  and 
tribal  organization.  These  out-family  men  made 
up  the  hordes  that  the  ancient  conquerors  led  and 
by  means  of  which  they  subdued  the  ancient  tribes 
and  reduced  their  members  to  the  level  of  the  tribe- 
less  men.  It  was  the  man  without  a  city,  who  be- 
came the  destruction  of  the  city.  He  gave  his 
strength  to  the  Caesars  and  enabled  them  to  reduce 
the  ancient  city  life  to  a  dead  level  of  non-citizen- 
ship. In  our  day,  industry  is  threatened  by  the 
vagabond.  It  is  the  millions  who  are  hiding  and 
breeding  in  the  purlieus  of  our  great  industrial 
centers  that  are  the  barbarians  who  are  coming  to 
overturn  our  present  society,  unless  some  measures 
are  taken  to  change  these  barbarians  into  civilized 
men,  to  give  to  them  the  privileges  of  civilization 
and  to  incorporate  them  into  society. 

It  is  this  starving  multitude  that  is  furnishing 
the  forces  in  the  class  struggle  that  is  now  going 
on  in  the  modern  world.  The  conflict  to-day  is  be- 
tween the  working-class  and  —  what,  for  want  of 
a  better  term,   we  will   call  —  the  monied   class. 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      43 

Money  to-day  is  the  symbol  of  power.  Money  is 
the  instrument  by  which  power  expresses  and  ex- 
erts itself.  By  means  of  money,  land  and  raw  ma- 
terial are  possessed,  and  everything  is  reckoned  in 
terms  of  money,  and  so  for  the  purposes  of  our 
argument  we  divide  the  world  into  the  two  classes, 
the  monied  and  the  moneyless.  The  monied 
classes  are  the  dominant  and  leisure  class;  the 
moneyless  class  is  the  subject  working-class.  The 
monied  leisure  class  is  struggling  to  keep  its  posi- 
tion of  power  and  privileges;  the  moneyless  class 
is  fighting  to  secure  for  itself  a  better  living  condi- 
tion. 

This  struggle  has  been  going  on  ever  since  hu- 
man society  was  organized.  The  slaves  of  ancient 
times  under  such  leaders  as  Spartacus  fought  for 
liberty ;  the  peasants  under  such  men  as  John  Ball 
struggled  with  the  nobles  for  the  right  to  a  morsel 
of  bread  and  rose  up  at  last  in  overwhelming  revo- 
lution, without  leadership,  among  the  French  and 
swept  the  nobility  and  the  clergy  for  the  time-being 
out  of  existence. 

But  this  struggle  of  classes  is  to-day  entering 
upon  an  entirely  new  phase.  It  is  a  highly  or- 
ganized warfare  upon  both  sides.  The  working- 
class  to-day  has  advantages  it  never  before  pos- 
sessed. The  higher  classes  have  been  compelled, 
little  by  little,  to  grant  some  of  the  privileges  of 


44        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

society  to  the  lower  classes.  To-day  the  working- 
man  is  in  possession  of  two  points  of  advantage 
which  he  never  had  before.  He  is  to-day  a  citizen. 
Political  society  has  had  to  incorporate  him  into 
itself.  In  almost  all  countries  the  adult  male  has 
the  right  of  franchise  with  some  property  restric- 
tions; in  the  United  States  he  has  this  right  with- 
out any  property  limitations.  A  man's  a  man 
when  he  enters  the  electoral  booth.  The  working- 
man  also  has  secured  for  himself  an  education 
which  has  made  him  a  reader  and  consequently  a 
thinker.  He  becomes  more  or  less  acquainted  with 
the  facts  of  the  world  around  him.  He  has  been 
studying  these  facts,  with  a  view  to  finding  out 
why  it  is  that  he  has  so  little,  while  the  other 
classes  have  so  much. 

Modern  industry  also  has  played  into  his  hand 
in  another  way.  Commerce  has  unified  the  world. 
It  has  not  only  brought  the  merchant  of  one  land 
into  close  contact  with  the  merchant  of  another 
land,  it  has  not  only  organized  capital  internation- 
ally, but  it  has  brought  the  workman  of  one  land 
into  intimate  relations  with  the  workmen  of  other 
lands.  Up  to  the  present  time  the  workmen  have 
been  divided  by  national  and  religious  differences. 
The  workmen  of  one  country  will  go  out  at  the  com- 
mand of  their  superiors  and  slay  the  workmen  of 
another  country.     In  this  way  the  present  govern- 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  EEVOLUTION      45 

ing,  capitalistic  class  have  been  playing  the  old 
trick  of  setting  slave  against  slave,  workman 
against  workman;  but  the  methods  of  intercom- 
munication which  capital  has  created  has  made  it 
possible  for  the  working-class  as  a  working-class 
to  be  conscious  of  itself  throughout  the  world.  So 
that  to-day  in  ever  increasing  numbers  the  work- 
ing-men are  organizing  themselves  industrially. 
These  working-men  know  neither  land  nor  kin; 
they  are  not  associated  with  their  fellowmen  by 
ties  of  country  or  bond  of  blood.  It  is  their  eco- 
nomic interests  that  control.  They  associate  them- 
selves with  those  in  other  lands  who  have  the  same 
economic  purposes  in  view.  Labor  to-day,  like  cap- 
ital, is  international.  The  working-man  is  begin- 
ning to  see  that  the  interests  of  his  class  are  one 
and  the  same,  no  matter  in  what  land,  under  what 
form  of  political  government,  or  religious  institu- 
tions that  class  may  be  living. 

It  is  this  awakening  of  the  working-class  to  a 
consciousness  of  its  own  class  existence  that  is  the 
central  and  controlling  fact  in  modern  life.  The 
working-class  has  been  held  in  subjection  by  the 
other  classes  because  it  has  been  kept  below  the 
level  of  class  consciousness.  The  upper  classes 
have  been  awake  to  their  own  existence  for  ages.  It 
is  this  wakefulness  that  has  made  them  the  ruling 
power  in  society.     The  laws  have  been  made  from 


46        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

the  beginning  in  their  interests ;  economic  interests 
combined  the  slave-holders  of  the  ancient  world 
into  a  ruling-class ; *  economic  interests  united  the 
land-holding  nobility  of  the  Middle  Age,  enabling 
them  to  subject  the  yeoman  and  the  peasant  and 
the  merchant.  Class  consciousness  caused  the  yeo- 
man and  the  merchant  to  combine  and  overthrow 
the  rule  of  the  nobility. 

To-day,  we  are  passing  through  the  last  phase  of 
a  revolutionary  period  extending  over  six  cen- 
turies of  time.  Beginning  with  the  struggle  of 
Philip  the  Fair  with  Boniface  VIII,  it  delivered 
the  new-born  nations  of  Europe  from  the  domina- 
tion of  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor.  Under  the 
leadership  of  such  men  as  William  of  Orange,  and 
Oliver  Cromwell,  it  placed  the  merchant  and  the 
yeoman  on  an  equality  with  the  land-holding  noble- 
man. The  mighty  sweep  of  the  French  Revolution 
destroyed  forever  the  power  and  prestige  of  the 
old  nobilities.  To-day,  the  working-class  is  slowly 
acquiring  place  and  power.  Having  the  elective 
franchise,  it  can,  when  it  will,  take  possession  of 
the  powers  of  government  and  use  them  in  the  in- 
terest of  that  class.  Everywhere  the  working-men 
are  pushing  themselves  into  places  of  control. 
This  movement  of  the  working-class  is  based  upon 
a  working-class  philosophy,  a  working-class  moral- 

i  Statutes  of  Hammurabi. 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      47 

ity,  and  a  working-class  religion.  The  old  philos- 
ophy, moralities,  and  religions  are  retreating  be- 
fore it. 

Whether  this  last  and  final  revolution  will  be  ac- 
complished without  violence,  no  one  can  say.  The 
experience  of  history  teaches  us  that  the  kingdoms 
of  righteousness  always  come  by  violence.  Injus- 
tice, inequity  do  not  easily  surrender.  Things  as 
they  are  fight  fiercely  against  things  as  they  ought 
to  be.  That  this  great  and  final  change  should  come 
to  pass  without  some  tremendous  upheaval  of  social 
forces  would  be  strange,  and  yet  it  is  possible. 
The  assaulting  force  is  so  much  stronger  than  the 
defensive,  that  the  defensive  must  inevitably  give 
place  before  it  without  any  overwhelming  re- 
sistance. To-day  the  people  are  the  power.  When 
they  determine,  they  cannot  be  long  resisted. 

The  working-class  have  combined  in  a  great  po- 
litical organization  to  secure  for  themselves  their 
proper  place  and  portion  in  the  life  of  the  world. 
This  organization  now  numbers  from  40,000,000 
to  60,000,000  of  the  adult  population  of  the  West- 
ern World.  It  has  a  great  political  following  in 
all  the  countries  of  the  West.  It  is  looking  to  po- 
litical action  rather  than  to  physical  to  secure  its 
rights.  The  wiser  leaders  of  the  movement  see 
that  the  day  for  physical  violence  is  past.  That 
the   working-man    has   in    his   hands   a    spiritual 


48        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

weapon,  more  potent  than  any  sword  or  bomb. 
Violence,  however,  is  not  and  cannot  be  altogether 
absent  from  so  tremendous  a  movement  as  this, 
and  to-day  we  see  the  working-class  rising  against 
its  masters,  and  seeking  by  physical  means  to  se- 
cure its  rights.  We  are  living  in  the  midst  of  a  so- 
cial war,  expressing  itself  in  the  strike  and  the 
lock-out,  in  the  boycott  and  the  black-list,  in  the 
armed  patrol  and  the  slugging  striker.  The  lowest 
stratum  of  the  working-class  of  the  world  is  now  in 
rebellion;  that  most  oppressed  and  forlorn  of  all 
the  elements  of  the  population,  the  working  girl 
and  woman  is  organizing  rebellion  against  her  in- 
dustrial conditions.  The  recent  strikes  of  the  Gar- 
ment Workers  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and 
other  American  cities  have  made  the  more  acute 
the  present  industrial  crisis.  These  women  and 
girls  are  aided  and  abetted  by  the  men.  When 
once  they  have  tasted  the  fruits  of  victory,  they  will 
organize  more  perfectly  so  as  to  be  ready  for  the 
next  demand.  And  they  are  irresistible  when  once 
organized  and  determined  to  secure  for  themselves 
living  conditions.  The  opposing  class  cannot  shoot 
down  women  and  girls  in  the  streets  of  our  cities, 
nor  can  it  be  long  endured  that  these  women  and 
girls  shall  be  beaten  up  by  the  police  and  thrown 
into  jail,  simply  for  asking  a  better  portion  as  their 
lot  in  life. 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  REVOLUTION      49 

The  battle  of  the  masses  with  the  classes  is  al- 
ready decided.  The  ruling-class  has  against  it  the 
growing  sense  of  humanity  which  is  the  outcome  of 
our  wider  knowledge  and  broader  sympathy.  It 
is  opposed  by  the  democratic  spirit  that  is  increas- 
ing with  every  passing  day.  The  religion  of  the 
Western  World  is  escaping  from  its  subordination 
to  the  privileges  of  property  and  place  and  entering 
into  the  world  to  stand  side  by  side  with  the  work- 
ing-men and  working-women  in  their  struggle  for 
supremacy. 

The  onslaught  on  the  position  of  the  ruling-class 
by  the  working-class  cannot  be  arrested.  It  must 
go  on  until  the  workers  shall  have  stormed  and 
taken  the  two  great  citadels  of  the  ruling-class,  un- 
limited private  ownership  of  land  and  the  raw  ma- 
terials necessary  for  human  existence,  and  the  un- 
limited private  ownership  of  the  means  of  produc- 
tion and  transportation  with  its  power  to  unlim- 
ited exploitation  of  human  labor.  These  are  the 
basic  principles  of  our  present  society.  When  once 
these  are  destroyed,  our  present  society  will  cease 
to  be  and  a  new  order  will  take  its  place.  That 
new  order  based  upon  the  social  control  of  all  forms 
of  private  property,  the  production  of  articles  of 
necessary  consumption  for  use  and  not  for  sale,  the 
establishment  of  cooperation  as  the  primary  princi- 
ple of  social  organization  will  give  rise  to  a  society 


50        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

as  different  from  ours  as  ours  is  different  from  the 
ancient  tribal  form,  or  the  ancient  order  of  the  city- 
state,  or  the  feudal  system  that  prevailed  in  the 
Middle  Ages. 


II 

THE  DOWNFALL  OF   THE   FATHER 

THE  invention  of  labor-saving  machinery,  with 
its  employment  of  the  superhuman  powers  of 
steam  and  electricity,  which  has  transferred  from 
the  home  to  the  factory  the  brewing  and  the  bak- 
ing, the  spinning  and  the  weaving,  the  cutting  and 
the  sewing  of  garments,  has  destroyed  the  family 
as  an  economic  unit.  The  institution  in  modern 
times  which  bears  the  name  of  the  family  is  no  more 
like  the  ancient  family  than  is  the  modern  kingdom 
of  England  like  the  kingdom  of  the  Plantagenets 
and  the  Tndors.  The  modern  family  is  but  the 
ghost  of  its  ancient  self. 

The  various  members  of  the  family  no  longer 
find  their  industrial  security  within  the  family. 
In  order  to  make  a  living,  each  member  of  the  fam- 
ily must  go  into  the  outside  world  in  search  of 
profitable  employment.  If  a  mother  or  a  daughter 
still  works  within  the  household,  she  does  so  as 
the  servant  of  the  other  members  of  the  family, 
who  support  her  and  themselves  by  what  they  re- 
ceive in  the  outside  world  in  return  for  services 
which  they  render  to  the  community. 

51 


52         THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

The  effect  of  this  revolution  has  been  to  change 

entirely  the  relation  of  the  father  to  the  family. 

He  who  was  once  the  lord  of  the  house  while  he 

lived,  and  the  god  of  the  house  when  he  died,  has 

now  fallen  so  low  that  there  is  no  one  so  poor  as 

to  do  him  reverence.     The  modern  conception  of 

the  father's  place  and  dignity  is  expressed  with 

brutal  frankness  in  the  doggerel,  which  a  short 

time  ago  was  so  popular  in  the  vaudeville  houses 

and  on  the  streets.     The  words  of  this  song  are  as 

follows : 

Everybody  works  but  fatber ; 
He  sits  'round  all  day, 
Feet  against  tbe  fire-place, 
Smoking  bis  pipe  of  clay. 

Mother  takes  in  washing ; 
So  does  sister  Ann. 
Everybody   works    in    our    house 
But  my  old  man. 

This  song  has  been  sung  by  children  in  the  hear- 
ing of  their  elders,  and  the  elders  have  laughed. 
So  might  one  laugh  as  he  listens  to  the  derision 
that  is  heaped  upon  the  fallen  drunkard.  We  do 
not  begin  to  know  the  tragedy  that  lies  in  the  fact 
that  such  a  song  as  this  can  be  sung.  It  is  scorn 
heaped  upon  fallen  greatness.  If  such  words  as 
these  had  been  uttered  thirty  centuries  ago  they 
would  have  been  punished  as  sacrilege.  He  who 
had  dared  to  speak  them  would  have  been  burned 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  THE  FATHER  53 

by  fire.  Even  so  late  as  a  century,  or  even  less, 
ago,  the  young  person  venturing  to  utter  such  senti- 
ments in  the  presence  of  the  father  or  the  mother, 
would  have  been  visited  with  the  rod,  imprisoned, 
and  fed  upon  a  diet  of  bread  and  water. 

The  father's  relation  to  the  woman,  who  is  at 
the  head  of  his  house,  is  no  longer  what  it  was  in 
the  days  of  the  family  greatness.  In  primitive 
times  the  wife  was  the  property  of  her  husband 
and  down  almost  to  our  own  day  she  was  little  more 
than  a  servant  in  the  house.  She  had  no  legal 
rights,  no  political  standing.  All  this  is  changed. 
Man  no  longer  owns  his  wife  as  he  did  in  the  primi- 
tive age.  There  is  still  a  reminiscence  of  this  fact 
in  the  marriage-service  when  the  father  of  the  bride 
transfers  his  ownership  of  the  woman  to  husband. 
The  memory  of  the  man's  lordship  still  lingers  in 
such  sayings  as  "  the  master  of  the  house,"  but 
these  are  nothing  more  than  survivals  from  an  an- 
cient condition  that  is  rapidly  passing  away. 

The  reason  for  this  change  in  the  relationship  of 
the  man  to  the  woman  in  the  family  is  that  the 
woman  is  no  longer  economically  dependent  on  the 
man.  She  and  he  are  no  longer  co-workers  in  an 
industrial  establishment.  In  the  ancient  house- 
hold the  necessities  of  life  were  provided  for  the 
family  by  the  family.  The  father  was  the  head  of 
this  establishment  and  as  such  demanded  and  re- 


54        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

ceived  absolute  obedience  from  all  its  members. 
He  exercised  in  the  family  the  same  authority  that 
is  now  in  the  hands  of  the  heads  of  our  great  indus- 
trial organizations.  Any  infraction  of  the  father's 
authority  by  any  member  of  the  household  meant 
a  disturbance  of  the  household  peace  and  a  conse- 
quent lessening  of  the  household  productiveness. 
It  was  to  the  interest  of  all  who  were  dependent 
upon  the  household  to  obey  the  father  as  long  as 
the  father  administered  the  household  affairs. 
This  fact  gave  legal  authority  to  the  family  custom 
which  clothed  the  father  with  absolute  power  over 
the  members  of  the  family  and  gave  him  the  sole 
ownership  of  the  family  estate.  He  was  supposed 
to  administer  the  family  property  for  the  benefit 
of  all  who  were  members  of  the  household  and  he 
received  in  return  the  reverence  and  obedience  of 
those  subject  to  his  will.  It  was  in  the  family  that 
the  virtue  of  obedience  originated  and  there  the 
father  acquired  a  rule  second  to  none  in  the  world. 
It  was  from  the  father  that  the  State  derived  its 
right  to  allegiance  of  its  citizens.  The  State  was 
the  over-father,  giving  to  each  head  of  the  house- 
hold additional  strength  and  dignity.  The  wife, 
while  subject  in  all  things  to  the  authority  of  her 
husband,  gradually  assumed  over  the  household 
a  command  second  only  to  his.  In  his  absence  she 
was  his  regent.     In  the  presence  of  the  family  the 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  THE  FATHER  55 

husband  was  compelled  to  treat  his  wife  with  re- 
spect because  of  this  delegated  authority.  He 
could  not  degrade  her  in  the  sight  of  the  house- 
hold without  lessening  his  own  power  to  keep  the 
family  in  order.  So  little  by  little,  the  wife  ac- 
quired a  place  of  security  and  dignity.  If  she 
brought  to  her  husband,  as  in  later  times  she  did, 
a  dowry,  this  gave  her  the  rights  of  a  partner  who 
had  contributed  a  certain  sum  to  the  invested  capi- 
tal of  the  industrial  establishment.  But  at  no 
time  was  the  wife  considered  the  equal  of  the  hus- 
band. She  was  at  the  best  the  queen-consort  in 
the  family  kingdom.  Until  recently  she  could  not 
hold  property  in  her  own  right,  nor  had  she  power 
of  testament.  All  that  she  brought  with  her  at  the 
time  of  her  marriage  became  family  property,  the 
title  of  which  was  vested  in  her  husband. 

This  was  a  necessity  while  the  family  was  an 
economic  unit.  A  division  of  property-right  at 
that  time  would  have  been  fatal  to  the  success  of 
the  domestic  industrial  establishment. 

The  change  which  has  taken  place  during  the  last 
fifty  years  in  the  status  of  the  married  woman  is 
owing  to  the  fact  that  just  prior  to  that  time  the 
family  ceased  to  be  an  economic  establishment.  It 
no  longer  produced  what  it  consumed.  Its  admin- 
istration became  a  matter  of  minor  importance. 
The  man  and  the  woman  were  related  individually 


56        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

to  an  industrial  system  outside  the  family  domain. 
The  wife  could  no  longer  with  her  own  hands  spin 
the  thread  and  weave  the  cloth  and  make  the  gar- 
ment to  protect  her  from  cold  and  shame.  She 
had  to  buy  this  in  the  market.  She  became  de- 
pendent upon  her  husband  as  she  had  not  been  in 
the  earlier  periods.  She  had  to  receive  from  him 
money  in  order  that  she  might  purchase  the  neces- 
sities of  her  life.  This  cash  relationship  entailed 
upon  her  great  hardship.  She  had,  and  in  a  meas- 
ure still  has,  to  beg  for  that  which  she  requires  to 
keep  herself  in  comfort  and  decency.  The  owner- 
ship of  the  family  property  by  the  man  has  en- 
tailed unspeakable  hardships  upon  the  woman. 

To  remedy  these  evils,  marriage  settlements  and 
other  efforts  at  mitigation  were  made;  but  as  the 
family  ceased  more  and  more  to  be  economically 
independent,  the  condition  of  the  wife  became  so 
intolerable  that  a  radical  change  had  to  be  made  in 
the  structure  of  the  family  institution.  The  wife 
was  given  by  law  the  right  to  the  private  owner- 
ship of  property.  That  which  she  herself  earned, 
which  came  to  her  by  gift  or  inheritance,  was  at 
last  her  own,  and  thus  she  became  economically 
independent  of  her  husband. 

To-day  the  man  and  the  woman  are  equal  before 
the  law  so  far  as  property-rights  are  concerned.1 

i  The  position  of  the  wife  is  superior  to  that  of  the  husband. 
He  is  responsible  for  her  debts.     She  is  not  responsible  for  his. 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  THE  FATHER  57 

When  the  woman  is  endowed,  she  need  ask  nothing 
of  her  husband.  If  she  has  property  and  he  has 
none,  he  then  becomes  economically  dependent 
upon  her ;  and  as  the  one  who  bears  the  purse  is  in 
control,  the  woman  under  these  circumstances  is 
the  real  source  of  authority  in  the  domestic  estab- 
lishment. 

If  the  woman  comes  to  the  man  in  these  days 
without  property,  then  she,  being  economically  de- 
pendent upon  him,  has  the  place  of  an  upper  serv- 
ant. In  the  economy  of  the  house,  she  performs 
those  tasks  that  are  purely  personal.  She  does  lit- 
tle or  nothing  towards  sustaining  the  family  life. 
If  she  is  the  only  servant  in  the  house  she  makes 
the  fire,  cares  for  the  rooms,  and  possibly  does  a 
part  of  the  laundry-work.  She  cooks  the  food,  or 
rather  a  portion  of  the  food,  since  in  the  modern 
household  even  the  food  is  procured  from  the  bak- 
ery and  the  delicatessen  shop  ready  for  the  table. 
The  position  of  the  wife  because  of  this  change  in 
the  modern  industrial  system  has  been  depleted  of 
much  of  its  authority  and  dignity.  She  no  longer 
presides  over  an  establishment  employing  a  num- 
ber of  people.  She  has  no  dairy  to  superintend, 
no  bakery  to  overlook,  no  brewing  to  watch.  Hers 
are  the  more  menial  duties  of  sweeping  and  dust- 
ing and  making  beds.  For  this  she  receives  what- 
soever is  given  her  by  the  man  who  supports  her 


58        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

upon  his  earnings.  Against  this  situation  the 
woman  is  in  rebellion,  and  because  of  this  the  au- 
thority of  the  man  over  the  woman  is  not  only  in 
danger,  but  is  passing,  if  it  has  not  already  passed 
away.  We  shall  speak  later  on  of  the  woman  in 
revolt;  we  are  now  dealing  with  the  fallen  estate 
of  the  head  of  the  house.  He  who  in  earlier  times 
could  command  must  now  in  some  cases  obey,  and 
in  most  cases  he  must  request. 

The  woman  is  no  longer  economically  dependent 
upon  the  family;  she  can,  if  she  will,  support  her- 
self in  the  industrial  world  that  lies  outside.  If 
she  gives  up  this  freedom  and  her  man  does  not 
treat  her  with  the  respect  that  she  thinks  is  her 
due,  she  can  leave  him,  and  go  back  to  her  former 
occupation. 

The  authority  of  the  head  of  the  house  over  the 
other  women  of  the  household,  if  there  be  such,  is 
wholly  gone.  In  the  ancient  family,  the  women 
were  classified  as  wife,  concubine,  and  slave. 
Demosthenes  says :  "  We  have  wives  to  bear  our 
children,  and  administer  our  household;  we  have 
concubines  for  our  bodily  attendants  and  comfort; 
we  have  mistresses  for  companionship."  The 
slaves  were  of  the  household  but  not  in  it.  The 
ancient  father  had  absolute  ownership  of  both  con- 
cubine and  slave.  The  one  he  made  use  of  for  his 
bodily  comfort,  the  other, —  that  is  the  slave, —  he 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  THE  FATHER  59 

employed  in  industrial  labor.  No  such  relation- 
ship exists  in  the  modern  family.  Concubines  are 
no  longer  permitted.  Slavery  has  ceased  to  exist. 
The  domestic  servants  of  the  modern  household  are 
under  the  wage-system.  They  have  freedom  to 
come  and  to  go.  The  modern  man  can  no  longer 
command  his  cook,  she  is  independent  of  him  and 
he  has  to  be  polite  to  her  if  he  wishes  to  have  his 
food  properly  cooked  and  served. 

The  modern  industrial  system  has  taken  from 
the  head  of  the  house  the  greatness  that  was  his 
aforetime  and  has  left  him  hardly  a  shadow  of  his 
former  self.  If  he  would  live  in  comfort  with  the 
women  of  his  establishment  he  must  be  careful  not 
to  exercise  authority.  He  must  maintain  his  place 
by  serving  instead  of  being  served.  If  he  wishes 
to  keep  his  wife  he  must  in  these  days  hold  her  by 
the  bonds  of  affection.  He  can  no  longer  lord  it 
over  the  woman.  The  woman  is  becoming  in  every 
respect  the  equal  of  the  man. 

Among  the  very  wealthy  the  right  of  the  wife  to 
discard  her  husband  is  now  recognized.  He  can 
no  longer  indulge  himself  and  expect  her  to  be 
faithful.  The  double  standard  is  no  longer  in 
force;  if  he  bestows  his  affection  upon  mistress  or 
concubine,  the  wife  if  she  pleases  may  divorce  him 
and  choose  another  husband.  Divorce  among  the 
rich  has  become  so  common  an  occurrence  that  it 


60        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

no  longer  excites  remark.  Both  husband  and  wife 
are  received  into  good  society  and  may  kneel  at  the 
altars  of  the  churches  for  sacramental  blessing. 
In  the  middle  class  if  the  wife  is  dependent  upon 
her  husband,  she  may  still  have  to  endure  his 
tyrannies  and  infidelities.  But  if  her  position  be- 
comes intolerable,  public  opinion  justifies  her  in 
seeking  the  dissolution  of  the  marriage  relation, 
and  places  upon  the  husband  the  necessity  of  sup- 
porting her,  as  long  as  she  lives,  if  he  is  found 
guilty  of  marital  wrong. 

When  a  man  marries  in  these  days,  he  assumes 
the  risks  of  alimony.  It  is  within  the  bounds  of 
possibility  that  he  may  have  to  support  a  woman 
even  after  that  woman  has  ceased  to  bear  any  other 
than  this  legal  relation  to  him. 

This  change  in  the  relation  of  the  man  to  the 
woman  is  revolutionary.  It  has  altered  the  whole 
structure  of  society.  It  has  made  the  family  in  the 
ancient  sense  an  impossibility.  The  paterfamilias 
is  no  more,  so  far  as  his  women  are  concerned. 
He  and  they  have  by  the  process  of  evolution  been 
resolved  into  individualities.  It  can  no  longer  be 
said  that  the  man  and  the  wife  are  one  flesh.  Each 
of  them  maintains  a  distinct  existence  and  may  at 
any  moment  sever  whatever  relation  may  from  time 
to  time  exist  between  them.  The  consequence  of 
this  great  social  revolution  is  far-reaching.     We  are 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  THE  FATHER  Gl 

not  yet  in  sight  of  the  end  of  it.  Man  and  woman 
will  have  to  re-adjust  their  relations  upon  a  basis 
that  is  founded  in  present-day  facts.  It  can  be 
said  with  truth  that  in  this  region  of  domestic  life 
old  things  are  passed  away  and  all  things  are  be- 
come new.  Just  what  the  new  relation  is  to  be, 
no  one  can  say.  All  that  can  be  affirmed  at  the 
present  time  is  that  the  old  relation  is  no  longer 
tenable. 

The  man  having  been  deprived  of  his  authority 
will  no  longer  consent  to  assume  the  responsibili- 
ties which  that  authority  placed  upon  him.  He 
will  refuse  to  enter  into  a  relation  so  one-sided 
as  that  which  is  now  proposed  for  him  by  society. 
The  woman  having  come  into  her  rights  will  her- 
self have  to  defend  those  rights  against  all  comers. 
She  will  be  compelled  to  make  with  the  man  the 
best  bargain  that  she  can.  If  she  can  win  and  hold 
his  love,  well;  if  not,  it  is  her  misfortune.  The 
man  also  can  no  longer  purchase  the  right  to  the 
exclusive  company  of  the  woman,  either  in  mar- 
riage or  out  of  it,  and  hold  that  right  by  force  of 
law.  He,  too,  must  gain  and  keep  the  love  of  his 
consort  if  he  expects  to  live  in  peace  with  her.  To 
speak  of  free-love  is  to  open  oneself  to  serious 
censure;  but  in  the  new  world  love  will  demand 
freedom  and  only  by  freedom  will  it  continue  to 
exist. 


62        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKIXG-CLASS 

The  social  revolution  has  not  only  changed  rad- 
ically the  relation  of  the  man  to  the  woman  in  the 
household,  but  it  has  also  altered  the  position  of 
the  father  in  regard  to  the  child.  In  the  earlier 
days  the  child  belonged  to  the  father.  It  was  his 
product  and  as  such  he  owned  it.  In  the  primi- 
tive family  it  was  left  to  the  father  to  decide 
whether  a  new-born  child  was  to  live  or  die.  If 
the  family  was  overcrowded  the  father  might  at 
his  discretion  take  his  child  and  expose  it  to  the 
cruel  mercy  of  the  elements,  the  beasts,  and  the 
birds.  This  was  what  happened  in  ancient  times 
over  and  over  again.  Female  children  if  they  were 
a  burden  upon  the  household  were  ruthlessly  sacri- 
ficed; and  down  to  the  present,  among  the  Chinese, 
where  the  family  is  still  the  economic  unit,  the  man 
who  destroys  his  baby  girl  incurs  no  odium.  So 
common  is  the  practice  of  destroying  these  waifs 
of  humanity,  that  the  Chinese  find  it  necessary  to 
put  round  about  their  little  lakes  the  sign,  "  Please 
do  not  throw  your  baby  girls  into  this  pond." 

In  later  life,  too,  the  children  were  subject  to  the 
despotic  power  of  the  father.  He  could  punish 
them  as  he  pleased  and  they  had  no  appeal.  Their 
life  was  fashioned  in  the  family  mold.  They 
were  not  individuals,  they  were  mere  cells  in  the 
family  organization.  As  long  as  the  family  main- 
tained its  existence  as  the  economic  unit  of  hu- 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  THE  FATHER  63 

manity,  so  long  the  children  were  a  part  of  that 
industrial  establishment.  As  a  consequence  of  this, 
during  all  the  days  of  the  family  integrity  the  child 
was  an  asset.  As  soon  as  he  could  run  about  he 
could  contribute  toward  his  own  support.  And, 
with  every  day  of  his  life  he  increased  in  industrial 
value. 

The  family  industries  were  so  varied  and  so  sim- 
ple that  children  could  do  much  of  the  necessary 
work.  When  the  family  lived  upon  its  own  land, 
produced  its  own  raw  material,  and  reduced  that 
material  to  commodities  for  consumption,  the  grow- 
ing child  was  one  of  the  most  valuable  forces  that 
the  family  employed.  The  feeding  of  the  chick- 
ens, the  care  of  the  swine  and  the  sheep,  the  run- 
ning of  the  household  errands,  were  all  done  by 
the  children,  and  because  of  their  work  the  family 
increased  in  power  and  wealth.  When  the  daugh- 
ters grew  to  womanhood  they  by  their  marriage 
made  alliances  that  strengthened  the  family  rela- 
tion. The  sons  growing  to  manhood  became  the 
support  and  defense  of  the  family  life.  In  those 
good  old  days  children  were  a  blessing,  as  it  is 
written,  "  Blessed  is  he  that  hath  his  quiver  full 
of  them." 

This  relation  of  the  father  to  the  children  where- 
by the  children  were  the  support  of  the  father, 
continued  down   almost   to  the  present  day.     If 


64        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

there  was  any  exception  to  this  state  of  affairs,  it 
was  among  the  higher  classes.  The  noble  desired 
an  heir;  beyond  that,  children  were  not  necessary 
to  him  as  he  was  in  possession  of  slaves  or  serfs 
to  do  his  work,  and  he  found  his  support  not  in 
the  living  forces  incarnate  in  children  but  in  the 
dead  force  of  legalized  property. 

The  members  of  the  merchant-class  were  desirous 
of  children  for  the  reason  that  the  children  gave 
them  the  assistance  they  needed  in  their  enterprises. 
A  child  of  the  household  was  far  more  valuable 
than  a  hired  apprentice  or  clerk.  Daughters  by 
marriage  widened  the  influence  of  the  merchant- 
father,  and  as  his  sons  came  to  manhood  they  re- 
lieved him  of  the  cares  of  business.  So,  the  more 
children  that  came  to  him,  the  merrier.  He  who 
bad  stalwart  sons  and  blooming  daughters  was 
possessed  of  a  capital  more  staple  than  gold  and 
silver.  This  has  been  the  condition  prevailing  in 
the  middle  class  down  to  the  present,  and  it  still 
holds  to  a  certain  degree.  But  even  the  middle 
class  is  now  being  revolutionized  and  children  are 
no  longer  desired  or  desirable.  The  family  of  six, 
eight,  ten,  and  twelve  children  disappeared  with 
the  nineteenth  century ;  we  shall  never  see  it  again, 
except  in  those  regions  where  men  and  women 
breed  as  rabbits  breed,  without  a  thought  of  the 
morrow.     The  middle-class   father  finds   children 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  THE  FATHER  65 

too  troublesome,  too  expensive,  too  perilous  to  run 
the  risk  of  producing  them. 

In  the  working-class  the  position  of  the  father 
in  relation  to  the  children  is  that  of  a  man  who 
constantly  makes  a  losing  investment.  When  the 
working-class  was  largely  agricultural  and  the  la- 
borer had  his  little  plot  of  ground  and  his  cottage, 
he  could  afford  to  produce  children  because  they 
could  do  the  work  of  the  house,  and  the  garden, 
and  so  sustain  themselves  and  add  a  little  to  his 
comfort.  In  the  towns  the  handicraftsmen  found 
children  profitable  because  they,  early  in  life,  could 
assist  him  in  the  work  of  his  trade.  They  could 
relieve  him  of  the  necessity  of  hiring  apprentices, 
and  as  he  lived  in  the  small  town  with  the  land 
round  about  him  as  a  common  for  his  cow  and  his 
chickens,  there  was  occupation  for  the  children  that 
was  a  benefit  to  the  family.  But  since  the  inven- 
tion of  the  labor-saving  machinery,  which  has  de- 
stroyed the  handicrafts,  since  the  greed  of  the 
landlord  has  enclosed  the  commons,  and  land  in  in- 
dustrial countries  has  become  too  valuable  for 
kitchen-gardens,  children  have  become  a  dead 
weight  upon  the  family  life.  As  things  are  now, 
the  man  who  produces  a  child  must  support  that 
child  until  it  comes  to  the  working  age.  Then  if 
the  child  is  to  do  anything  for  its  own  maintenance, 
it  must  be  sent  away  from  the  family  into  the  great 


66        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

industrial  establishments,  and  there  its  little  life 
is  exploited  in  the  interest  of  the  owners  of  the 
industries. 

When  the  child  enters  the  industrial  world  it  no 
longer  cooperates  with  the  father;  it  is  his  com- 
petitor. As  the  young  lad  grows  to  manhood,  he 
makes  the  labor-power  of  his  father  less  and  less 
valuable.  A  boy  of  18  will  receive  wages  equal  to 
that  of  his  father ;  a  man  of  30  will  drive  his  father 
out  of  employment.  It  is  this  fact,  more  than  any 
other,  that  is  bringing  about  the  great  revolution 
in  industrial  legislation,  which  we  are  now  witness- 
ing. The  old-age  pension  is  necessary  because  of 
the  break-up  of  the  family.  The  father  as  he  en- 
ters upon  his  declining  years,  having  invested  his 
strength  in  his  children  finds  that  those  children 
are  no  longer  his  support.  They  owe  him  nothing. 
He  brought  them  into  the  world  without  their  con- 
sent; the  State  compelled  him  to  maintain  them  as 
long  as  they  were  helpless;  and  when  they  became 
helpful  then  the  community  took  these  children 
from  the  father  and  appropriated  them  to  its  own 
uses.  This  startling  fact  has  not  yet  forced  itself 
into  the  consciousness  of  the  thinkers  upon  social 
subjects.  Even  so  able  a  writer  as  Mrs.  Bosan- 
quet l  has  written  a  book  antagonizing  old-age  pen- 
sion, because  she   feels  that  this  interference   of 

i  The  Strength  of  The  Family. 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  THE  FATHER         67 

the  State  will  tend  to  weaken  family  ties  and  break 
up  the  family  institution.  Strange  it  is  that  a 
woman  living  in  London,  within  reach  of  Spittle- 
fields,  Shoreditch,  and  Mile-end  Road,  should  be 
unaware  of  the  fact  that  so  far  as  the  poor  of  Eng- 
land are  concerned,  there  is  no  family;  for  many 
of  them  there  never  has  been  a  family :  for  most 
of  them,  if  not  all,  the  family  is  at  present  a  by- 
gone thing. 

Not  only  has  the  father  been  deprived  of  all 
pecuniary  advantage  in  his  children  but  he  has 
also  lost  control  of  them.  The  power  of  the  father 
has  passed  away:  the  authority  of  the  father  over 
the  children  is  to-day  nothing  more  than  the  mem- 
ory of  a  past  estate.  The  children  are  not  his  chil- 
dren, they  belong  to  the  community.  If  the  father 
is  a  man  of  property,  he  can  within  limits  control 
his  children.  He  can  say  what  they  shall  eat,  and 
what  they  shall  drink  and  wherewithal  they  shall 
be  clothed.  He  can  decide  upon  the  place  and 
method  of  their  education.  But  that  is  not  the 
authority  of  his  parentage,  it  is  the  authority  of 
his  purse.  He  buys  from  the  community  at  a  price 
the  right  to  direct  the  lives  of  his  children.  But 
even  he,  no  matter  how  rich  he  may  be,  cannot  ex- 
pose his  children  to  danger.  He  must  provide  them 
with  the  care  which  the  community  determines  to 
be  their  right.     The  law  compels  him  to  have  a 


68        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

physician  in  attendance  upon  his  sick  child,  and 
it  will  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  that  physician 
must  not  be  of  his  choosing  but  must  be  such  an 
one  as  the  State  has  approved  of  and  to  whom  the 
State  has  given  its  diploma.  Nor  will  the  State 
suffer  the  father  to  inflict  upon  the  child  any  cruel 
punishment.  Even  the  rod  is  a  dangerous  thing 
for  the  father  to  handle.  Let  him  smite  his  child 
a  little  too  heavily  and  he  will  find  the  agent  of  the 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children 
bringing  him  to  the  bar  of  justice  and  the  judge 
sentencing  him  to  fine  and  imprisonment. 

The  oversight  of  the  State  is  continually  on  the 
increase,  not  only  is  it  looking  after  the  born,  but 
it  is  taking  into  its  purview  the  unborn.  That 
which  Sir  Thomas  More  suggested  in  his  Utopia 
is  now  seriously  proposed  as  a  part  of  the  social 
order.  Before  a  man  can  undertake  the  duty  of 
producing  a  child,  he  must  subject  himself  to  the 
inspection  of  a  jury  of  experts,  that  it  may  be 
ascertained  whether  or  no  he  is  able  to  do  that  task 
to  the  advantage  of  the  public;  and  it  is  likewise 
proposed  that  the  woman  who  is  looking  forward 
to  motherhood  shall  be  subjected  to  the  inspection 
of  a  jury  of  matrons,  and  only  upon  the  verdict  of 
these  juries  will  the  man  and  the  woman  be  allowed 
to  cohabit. 

If  the  rich  and  the  well-to-do  find  themselves 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  THE  FATHER  69 

curtailed  in  the  matter  of  their  authority  over  the 
children,  the  working-class  and  the  poor  have  lost 
that  authority  altogether.  The  community  has  un- 
dertaken the  care  of  the  children  of  the  poor  with 
one  single  exception.  It  will  not  feed  them  nor 
clothe  them,  nor  house  them;  but  beyond  these 
physical  necessities  it  will  not  permit  the  father 
to  have  his  will.  It  provides  for  the  education 
of  the  child,  it  does  not  leave  this  any  longer  to  the 
father's  discretion ;  he  must,  whether  he  will  or  not, 
send  his  children  to  the  schools,  which  the  State 
has  set  up ;  he  must  give  his  children  that  medical 
attendance  which  the  State  deems  necessary.  He 
may  be  an  anti-vaccinationist,  but  if  the  State  says 
vaccinate,  then  the  little  child  must  bare  its  arm 
to  the  surgeon's  probe.  If  he  finds  the  support  of 
his  children  too  heavy  for  him,  and  tries  to  send 
them  to  work  before  legal  age,  the  State  brings 
him  up  with  a  short  turn  and  lays  upon  him  the 
additional  burden  of  paying  a  fine.  The  attitude 
of  the  State  to  the  children  of  the  working-class 
and  the  poor  is  that  of  the  ancient  despotic  father. 
The  poor,  and  the  children  of  the  poor,  have  seem- 
ingly no  rights  which  the  State  is  bound  to  respect. 
The  State  is  the  over-father  of  this  offspring  of  the 
laboring-class,  and  in  its  wisdom  decides  what  is 
best. 

This  great  social  revolution,  so  far  as  the  fam- 


70        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

ily  is  concerned,  has  gone  almost  full  circle.  It 
will  have  to  return  upon  itself  if  the  family  is 
to  be  restored  to  anything  like  a  tolerable  exist- 
ence. In  fact,  we  may  say  that  the  revolution  in 
its  movement  has  swept  humanity  backward  into 
the  old  condition  of  tribal  relationship.  We  no 
longer  belong  to  the  narrow  confines  of  the  fam- 
ily existence ;  we  are  part  and  parcel  of  the  greater 
community.  It  is  the  community  that  cares  for 
us  from  the  time  that  we  are  thought  of  until  the 
day  of  our  birth,  and  through  this  human  existence 
of  ours  from  our  cradle  to  our  grave.  We  live 
in  the  community;  we  work  for  the  community; 
we  receive  from  the  community  the  means  of  exist- 
ence. The  family  has  been  reduced  to  the  mere  shell 
of  its  former  self.  It  is  still  the  nest  in  which  we 
are  bred  and  hatched;  but  as  soon  as  we  begin 
to  toddle,  our  steps  lead  away  from  the  nest  into 
the  community  barnyard  where  we  have  to  scratch 
and  pick  with  the  crowd  and  get  our  living  as  best 
we  may. 

This  break-up  of  the  family  is  the  salient  fact 
of  modern  life;  because  of  it  we  have  the  indus- 
trial unrest  which  as  an  earthquake  is  heaving  the 
solid  crust  of  the  social  order  and  shaking  ancient 
institutions  down  into  shapeless  ruin.  It  is  this 
that  is  giving  employment  to  our  divorce  courts, 
compelling  the  establishment  of  juvenile  courts, 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  THE  FATHER  71 

making  child-welfare  a  public  concern;  setting  the 
father  against  the  son  and  the  son  against  the  fa- 
ther, the  mother  against  the  daughter  and  the 
daughter  against  the  mother,  the  wife  against  the 
husband  and  the  husband  against  the  wife;  re- 
ducing to  chaos  the  social  cosmos  against  the  time 
of  social  reconstruction.  The  power  of  the  father 
has  fallen.  The  forces  of  the  industrial  revolution 
have  entered  the  home  and  destroyed  its  autonomy. 
Because  of  this  altered  condition,  the  father  in 
the  working-class  must  look  forward  to  an  old  age 
of  dependence;  the  more  numerous  his  children, 
the  greater  the  destitution  in  his  time  of  old  age. 
His  children  cannot  support  him,  they  have  all  that 
they  can  do  to  sustain  themselves  and  their  chil- 
dren. Youth  cannot  spare  the  crust  to  old  age. 
The  children  demand  the  food  and  the  clothing 
and  the  shelter,  and  because  of  this  the  father  must 
be  stinted  and  crowded  into  a  corner.  On  this  ac- 
count the  cry  has  gone  up  from  all  lands  where 
the  modern  system  of  industry  prevails  that  the 
community  through  its  political  organization  shall 
assume  the  care  of  the  aged  as  it  has  taken  over  the 
protection  of  the  young.  The  old  man  and  the 
old  woman  must  be  fed  at  the  common  table  and 
this  not  as  a  dole  but  as  a  right.  The  old-age  pen- 
sion is  now  a  part  of  the  established  order  of  every 
progressive  nation. 


Ill 

RESPONSIBILITY   OF   THE   MOTHER 

THE  social  revolution  which  has  dethroned  the 
father  has  exalted  the  mother.  She  has  as- 
sumed a  place  in  society  unknown  to  ancient  or 
medieval  life.  Her  freedom  has  entailed  upon  her 
grave  consequences.  For  the  first  time  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  family  the  woman  has  the  right  to  choose 
her  own  mate.  Up  to  our  day  in  all  well-estab- 
lished families  the  woman  had  nothing  to  say  as 
to  the  man  whom  she  was  to  marry.  This  was  the 
concern  of  her  father  or  her  elder  brother,  or  who- 
soever at  the  time  was  at  the  head  of  the  family 
establishment.  Her  marriage  did  not  concern  her- 
self only,  it  was  a  family  affair.  If  she  married 
and  went  out  of  the  family,  as  was  the  custom  in 
ancient  times,  her  marriage  was  of  importance  to 
the  family  which  she  left  and  to  the  family  which 
she  joined.  These  two  became  then  united  by  af- 
finity. Naturally  each  family  wished  to  ally  itself 
with  the  best  that  it  could  find  within  the  circle  of 
its  acquaintance.  The  hand  of  the  woman  was  a 
family  asset,  not  to  be  lightly  thrown  away.     Her 

elders  consulted  concerning  her  future  without  any 

72 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  MOTHER        73 

regard  to  her  feelings.  She  did  not  know,  in  many 
eases,  the  man  to  whom  she  was  to  be  united  for 
life  until  he  was  presented  to  her  by  her  father; 
and  when  so  presented  she  had  no  choice.  She  did 
not  take  her  husband,  she  received  him.  She  was 
transferred  to  his  family,  just  as  an  ox  or  an  ass 
might  be  transferred  from  one  owner  to  another 
upon  the  payment  of  the  purchase  price. 

This  has  been  the  fate  of  the  woman  among  all 
peoples  where  the  family  has  been  and  is  an  estab- 
lished institution.  Not  the  law  of  love,  but  the 
law  of  the  house  has  been  the  controlling  force  in 
joining  the  man  and  the  woman  together.  Econ- 
omy not  romance  is  the  motive  of  such  marriages. 
Nor  have  these  marriages  been  so  disastrous  as  we 
of  modern  times  with  our  greater  freedom  might 
be  led  to  believe.  The  woman  accepted  her  fate 
and  adjusted  herself  to  the  inevitable.  There  was 
no  way  of  escape  for  her,  and  because  of  this  she 
made  herself  at  home  with  the  man  to  whom  she 
had  been  joined ;  his  people  became  her  people,  his 
gods  her  gods,  and  she  served  him  and  them  with 
fidelity.  Under  the  old  regime  passion  did  not  play 
so  great  a  part  as  it  does  at  present,  but  affection 
was  stronger;  the  marriage  bond  was  considered 
sacred  and  the  woman  who  rebelled  against  it  had 
to  struggle  with  the  religious,  social,  and  political 
forces  of  her  time. 


74        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

Among  ourselves  all  this  has  been  changed.  Our 
women  are  supposed  to  be  free  to  choose  their  own 
mates,  and  it  is  considered  disgraceful  for  a  woman 
to  marry  a  man  whom  she  does  not  love.  Because 
of  this  freedom,  a  greater  liberty  has  been  allowed 
to  the  young  unmarried  woman  than  has  ever  been 
permitted  before.  As  soon  as  a  girl  begins  to  enter 
into  womanhood,  she  is  allowed  to  associate  freely 
with  the  male  of  the  species.  She  may  be  chap- 
eroned more  or  less  strictly  but  this  does  not  pre- 
vent free  access  to  her  on  the  part  of  any  man  who 
may  seek  her  company.  In  our  homes,  in  our 
schools,  in  our  streets,  in  our  places  of  business, 
our  factories  and  mills,  the  young  women  and  the 
young  men  are  thrown  together  and  are  left  to 
manage  their  own  relations. 

The  man  is  supposed  to  choose  the  woman;  but 
in  reality,  according  to  the  law  of  sex,  the  woman 
lures  the  man.  Nature  has  pruned  her  for  this 
purpose.  It  has  given  her  beauty,  and  grace,  and 
ways  that  are  wise,  and  tricks  that  are  vain,  where- 
by she  may  lay  hold  of  her  mate  and  compel  him 
to  her  embraces.  The  girl  of  twelve  or  even  younger 
unconsciously  exercises  these  powers  of  coquetry. 
As  she  grows  older  she  becomes  conscious  of  her 
sex-power,  and  she  plays  it  against  the  stupid 
strength  of  the  male.  Left  free,  the  woman  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases  can  marry  the  man  she 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  MOTHER        75 

wants  to  marry.  This  is  her  responsibility.  She 
chooses  her  mate  in  accordance  with  her  own  men- 
tal, moral,  and  spiritual  make-up.  She  never 
knows  the  reality  of  the  man  whom  she  marries; 
she  marries  her  own  ideal.  Any  and  every  reason 
is  sufficient  to  attach  the  woman  to  a  given  man. 
His  appearance,  his  way  of  talking  makes  its  ap- 
peal, draws  to  him  her  love ;  and  her  choice  is  made. 
The  teaching  of  the  English-speaking  girl  for  the 
last  century  has  made  her,  in  a  measure,  incapable 
of  wise  choice.  Romanticism  has  been  rampant. 
Our  literature  has  been  based  upon  sexual  selec- 
tion, and  the  woman  has  been  supposed  to  love  the 
man  whom  she  in  the  exercise  of  her  freedom 
chooses  to  love. 

As  a  consequence  of  this,  the  woman  is  not  ca- 
pable of  wise  selection,  she  knows  little  or  nothing 
of  the  male  nature.  All  that  pertains  to  her  sex- 
ual life  has  been  kept  away  from  her  knowledge. 
She  is  ignorant  not  only  of  her  own  functions,  but 
also  of  the  dangers  that  lurk  in  the  dark  places  of 
the  sexual  world  and  threaten  her  with  destruc- 
tion. During  the  period  of  courtship,  she,  how- 
ever honest  she  may  be,  unconsciously  deceives  the 
man  whom  she  is  luring,  and  the  man  either  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  keeps  himself  a  secret 
from  the  woman.  While  romanticism  is  the  basis 
of  marriage,  marriage  must  be  more  or  less  haz- 


76        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

ardous.  Romanticism  is  not  a  hard  and  fixed  real- 
ity, it  is  a  condition  of  mind.  When  the  days  of 
courtship  are  over,  and  the  honeymoon  has  gone 
down,  and  the  sun  rises  upon  the  matter  of  fact 
world,  then  these  two,  whom  romanticism  has 
brought  together,  find  themselves  strangers,  must 
make  each  other's  acquaintance,  and  establish  their 
mutual  relations  upon  a  more  permanent  basis. 
This  responsibility  of  the  woman  in  the  choice  of 
her  mate  is,  even  with  us,  more  or  less  limited  for 
economic  reasons.  A  woman  cannot  well  marry 
out  of  her  class,  because  it  is  only  within  her  class 
that  she  associates  freely  with  the  male.  Some- 
times she  oversteps  the  boundary  of  class,  and  mar- 
ries her  coachman  or  her  chauffeur.  But  this  is  a 
rare  occurrence  and  it  entails  misery.  Within  the 
class,  however,  the  woman  is  free  to  choose,  and 
upon  her  choice  depends  her  future  happiness. 

In  ancient  times  when  the  choice  was  made  for 
her  it  determined  her  whole  earthly  existence. 
There  was  no  way  of  escape  but  the  way  of  death. 
If  her  husband  put  her  away  that  was  social  death 
to  her.  A  discredited  and  discrowned  wife  had  no 
place  in  the  ancient  social  system.  When  divorce 
became  easy,  in  the  later  period  of  Roman  civiliza- 
tion, it  was  because  the  family  had  ceased  to  be  the 
controlling  institution  in  the  social  world. 

In  our  day  the  outlook  for  the  mismated  woman 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  MOTHER        77 

is  not  quite  so  hopeless.  There  is  a  way  open  for 
the  dissolution  of  the  tie  which  binds  her  to  the 
man.  But  this  fact  does  not  detract  essentially 
from  the  grave  responsibility  that  is  involved  in  her 
freedom  of  choice.  A  woman  who  fails  in  mar- 
riage fails  in  life. 

The  liberation  of  the  woman  from  family  control 
is  a  radical  change,  demanding  the  re-adjustment 
of  society.  The  woman  cannot  with  safety  be  any 
longer  secluded  within  the  family  walls  from  the 
life  of  the  world  into  which  she  must  of  her  own 
choice  and  will  make  her  way.  All  of  those  mat- 
ters which  up  to  this  time  have  been  tabooed  must 
now  be  released  and  given  over  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  woman  that  she  may  have  some  security  in 
making  her  selection.  It  is  only  recently  that  the 
female  of  the  species  in  the  middle  and  upper 
classes  has  acknowledged  openly  to  the  world  that 
she  is  a  two-legged  animal.  That  atrocious  con- 
trivance, the  side-saddle,  is  typical  of  the  false  mod- 
esty which  tried  to  conceal  from  the  world  the 
simplest  and  most  beautiful  of  all  the  creations  of 
nature,  the  female  form.  The  rebellion  of  sensible 
women  against  this  claptrap  is  one  of  the  reassur- 
ing facts  in  the  present  movement  going  on  in  the 
world  of  woman.  When  the  first  girl  dared  to  ride 
astride  she  accomplished  for  her  sex  a  benefit 
greater  than  any  that  ever  will  come  to  her  by  way 


78        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

of  the  ballot.  She  asserted  her  right  to  two  legs 
and  two  feet.  She  was  no  longer  ashamed  of  the 
form  which  nature  had  given  her  and  she  refused 
to  conceal  the  essential  fact  of  that  form  from  the 
world. 

In  matters  more  serious  than  this,  there  must  be 
the  same  contempt  of  custom,  the  same  open  deal- 
ing. Matters  of  sex  and  maternity  must  be  spoken 
of  with  the  same  freedom  as  other  matters  germane 
to  the  well-being  of  the  human  race.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  estimate  the  evil  which  has  been  entailed 
upon  mankind  by  the  seclusion  of  woman  and  her 
consequent  ignorance  of  the  matters  most  important 
for  her  to  know.  The  agitation  in  favor  of  a  health- 
certificate  before  marriage  is  one  of  the  signs  point- 
ing to  a  more  sensible  way  of  thinking  on  this  vital 
subject.  When  a  woman  chooses  a  man  and  a  man 
accepts  a  woman  they  have  each  a  right  to  know 
the  physical  state  of  the  person  with  whom  they 
are  about  to  enter  into  that  closest  relationship. 

Women  must  also  be  trained,  if  they  are  to  choose 
wisely,  in  economics.  Until  recently  the  man  has 
considered  himself  all-sufficient  in  that  which  con- 
cerns the  management  of  the  household  income  and 
expense.  He  has  given  to  the  woman  what  he  con- 
sidered necessary  and  she  has  spent  this  —  subject 
to  his  criticism.  Consequently  the  woman  being 
ignorant  of  the  family  income  was  in  danger  of 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  MOTHER        79 

going  beyond  that  income  and  of  involving  the 
family  in  economic  difficulties.  The  Englishman 
and  the  American  have  been  gravely  at  fault  in 
this  regard.  They  have  not  trained  their  daugh- 
ters in  affairs.  They  have  supposed  that  the  house- 
hold business  did  not  call  for  skilful  handling. 
The  wife  enters  upon  her  task  of  housekeeping, 
ignorant  of  her  calling;  and  she  is  one  among  a 
thousand  if  she  ever  learns  how  to  manage  her 
house  as  a  business-man  manages  his  industrial 
establishment. 

This  lack  on  the  part  of  the  woman  hinders  her 
in  the  matter  of  choosing  wisely  the  man  who  is  to 
be  her  co-worker  in  the  family  life.  If  a  marriage 
be  one  of  affection  only,  and  the  purse  is  not  con- 
sidered, it  is  apt  before  many  moons  have  passed 
to  enter  into  stormy  regions  that  may  wreck  its 
happiness  forever. 

In  the  good  old  times,  the  father  of  the  woman 
made  careful  inquiry  into  the  financial  estate  of  the 
proposed  bridegroom.  What  was  formerly  done 
for  the  woman,  she  must  do  now  for  herself.  Be- 
fore she  yields  her  lips  to  her  lover  and  gives  him 
the  rights  of  love,  she  must  ascertain  whether  he 
is  able  to  meet  the  obligations  which  she  is  laying 
upon  him  by  thus  yielding  herself  to  his  solicitation. 
This  is  the  more  incumbent  because  in  the  present 
state  of  society  the  woman  has  an  additional  re- 


80        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

sponsibility  beside  that  of  choosing  her  own  mate. 
The  love  of  the  man  for  the  woman,  and  the 
woman  for  the  man,  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  it  is  a 
means  to  an  end.  It  is  the  snare  of  nature  to  en- 
trap these  innocent  beings  into  doing  that  which 
otherwise  they  would  not  care  to  do.  The  outcome 
of  gratified  love  is  children.  When  the  man  and 
the  woman  unite,  then  in  the  course  of  nature  we 
frave  three  beings  instead  of  two.  The  purpose  of 
the  ancient  family,  as  we  have  already  learned, 
was  to  secure  food  and  to  produce  children;  and 
these  two  things  are  so  related  to  each  other  that 
they  form  one  single  purpose.  If  there  is  no  food, 
it  is  useless  to  produce  children.  The  children  live 
by  eating,  and  the  table  must  be  provided  for  them 
before  they  enter  upon  life.  The  human  young 
must  be  supported  by  its  parents  for  a  long  period 
after  birth.  This  is  the  peculiar  problem  of  hu- 
manity. All  other  living  creatures  are  more  for- 
tunate than  man  in  this  respect.  Within  a  week, 
or  two  or  three,  after  birth,  the  young  of  the 
various  animals  that  roam  the  air  and  the  forests 
and  the  seas  are  independent;  they  seek  and  find 
their  own  nutriment;  they  earn  their  own  living. 
But  man  is  a  helpless  creature  that  must  be  cared 
for,  not  one  year,  nor  two,  nor  three,  but  perhaps 
for  twenty;  and  this  work  must  be  done  by  those 
who  have  had  the  temerity  to  bring  that  young  ani- 


EESPOXSIBILITY  OF  THE  MOTHEB        81 

mal  into  an  existence  where  food  and  clothing  and 
shelter  must 'be  had  by  the  sweat  of  the  brow.  It 
would  be  a  small  matter  if  a  man  had  only  to  labor 
to  get  his  own  living.  It  is  the  children  that  make 
the  extraordinary  call  upon  his  strength  and  turn 
his  labor  into  sorrow. 

Up  to  recent  times  the  responsibility  of  provid- 
ing for  the  children  has  lain  upon  the  shoulders 
of  the  father,  and  it  is  a  common  thought  that  the 
father  to-day  is  the  breadwinner.  This  conception 
is  one  of  those  popular  errors  that  are  so  evident 
that  it  seems  as  though  even  the  blind  might  see 
their  fallacy.  The  man  is  not,  and  never  has  been, 
the  breadwinner  of  the  family,  exclusive  of  the 
woman.  From  the  beginning  of  human  existence 
down  to  the  present,  quite  one-half,  if  not  two- 
thirds,  of  all  the  labor  entailed  in  providing  food, 
shelter,  and  clothing  for  the  children  has  been  per- 
formed by  the  woman.  The  mother  has  been  not 
a  drone  but  a  worker  in  the  family  hive.  In  prim- 
itive times  and  among  the  laboring-classes  of  the 
present  day  all  the  drudgery  falls  upon  the  mother. 
The  most  necessary  work  is  done  by  her  hands. 
The  man  contributes  to  the  welfare  of  the  family 
but  he  is  far  from  being  the  sole  producer.  In 
our  times  this  burden  of  caring  for  the  young  in 
things  material  is  falling  more  and  more  upon  the 
woman.     As  society  is  now  organized,  the  fate  of 


82        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

the  children  is  altogether  in  the  power  of  the  par- 
ents. The  children  are  healthy  or  sickly,  are  rich 
or  poor,  are  ignorant  or  cultured  because  of  their 
parents.  Society  to-day  is  just  beginning  to  take 
knowledge  of  the  fact  that  it  cannot  afford  to  leave 
the  fate  of  the  young  dependent  upon  so  slender  a 
support.  But  while  we  are  socially  fumbling  with 
the  problem,  the  situation  is  bringing  forth  its  nat- 
ural results. 

The  family  relation  to-day  is  so  precarious  that 
it  cannot  be  relied  upon  to  do  the  work  which  the 
family  was  organized  to  perform.  The  father  is 
no  longer  reliable.  The  hazards  of  industry  are 
such  that  thousands  and  thousands  of  fathers  in 
the  laboring-class  are  maimed  or  killed,  and  their 
children,  so  far  as  the  father  is  concerned,  are  left 
helpless  upon  the  world.  Employment  is  so  un- 
certain that  the  household  cannot  depend  upon  the 
earnings  of  the  man  for  its  sustenance.  The  social 
order  is  in  such  an  anarchic  condition,  lawlessness 
is  so  widespread,  that  the  man  of  the  house  cannot 
be  held  in  the  grip  of  his  family  duty.  If  the  bur- 
den of  the  family  life  becomes  too  heavy  for  him 
he  drops  it  and  moves  away  and  hides  himself  in 
that  vast  restless,  shifting  mass  of  humanity  that 
is  now  surging  through  the  world. 

As  things  are  now,  if  the  man  deserts  his  family, 
is  incapacitated,  or  dies,  the  support  of  the  chil- 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  MOTHER        83 

dren  falls  wholly  upon  the  mother.  Society  says 
to  her :  "  You  were  so  thoughtless,  so  improvident, 
as  to  bring  these  children  into  the  world,  not  know- 
ing of  a  certainty  how  they  were  to  be  fed  and 
clothed  and  housed,  and  you  must  reap  the  conse- 
quence of  your  own  shortsightedness!  You  must 
work  your  fingers  to  the  bone,  sap  all  your  strength, 
break  both  your  back  and  your  heart  to  bring  these 
little  ones  up  to  man's  and  woman's  estate.  We 
can  do  nothing  for  you  until  you  yourself  break 
down.  We  will  stand  by  and  watch  your  pitiless 
struggle  and  when  you've  reached  the  point  of  ex- 
haustion, we  will  put  out  to  you  the  hand  of  charity 
and  wet  your  parched  lips  with  a  little  water  and 
give  you  a  morsel  of  bread  to  strengthen  your  faint- 
ing soul.  Your  children  are  your  children,  and 
you  must  take  care  of  them." 

It  is  this  new  responsibility  that  makes  mother- 
hood so  hazardous  to  the  modern  woman.  She  can 
no  longer  depend  upon  the  man,  nor  is  there  a  fam- 
ily institution  closely  organized  to  act  in  the  fa- 
ther's place  when  the  father  fails.  We  are  living 
as  if  the  family  were  still  intact.  We  refuse  to 
recognize  that  which  lies  open  to  our  view.  We 
pass  by  the  household  which  time  and  revolution 
has  wrecked  and  refuse  to  see  its  unroofed  walls, 
its  broken  floors,  its  windowless  casing.  We  per- 
mit children  to  be  born,  and  we  allow  them  to  live 


84        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

without  any  sane  provision  for  their  proper  care. 
We  lay  the  greatest  burden  of  society  upon  its 
weaker  element.  We  compel  the  woman  to  play 
the  parts  of  both  the  father  and  the  mother.  She 
must  go  out  of  the  house  and  earn  a  living  for  her 
children  and  at  the  same  time  she  must  keep  the 
house  and  bring  up  her  children.  Never  before 
in  any  like  degree  has  this  been  required  of  the 
woman  by  human  society.  It  is  this  cruelty  on  the 
part  of  society  that  is  the  source  of  vast  social  evils. 
The  mother  is  driven  from  the  nest  and  can  no 
longer  cover  with  the  wings  of  her  love  her  callow 
young  and  so  they  are  exposed  to  the  violence  of 
the  elements  and  to  the  hungry  beak  of  every  bird 
of  prey.  If  it  were  not  so  serious,  this  situation 
would  be  the  essence  of  comedy.  A  single  instance 
will  illustrate  better  than  a  page  of  reason. 

A  woman  came  to  the  present  writer,  telling  him 
that  her  husband  had  just  died,  leaving  her  with 
five  children  under  working  age.  She  begged  of 
the  writer  that  he  would  find  her  employment. 
She  must  work  for  wages,  or  she  and  her  children 
must  starve,  go  naked,  and  be  thrown  on  the  street. 
The  writer,  moved  by  her  pitiful  tale,  went  down 
into  the  city  and  found  her  employment  in  one  of 
the  large  office-buildings.  The  superintendent  of 
the  building  was  very  ready;  he  needed  a  woman, 
and  he  said  with  considerable  satisfaction  that  it 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  MOTHER        85 

was  just  the  place  for  her.  She  would  only  have 
to  come  down  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  and 
stay  until  nine,  and  then  again  at  five  o'clock  in 
the  evening  and  stay  until  nine;  she  could  have 
all  the  rest  of  the  day  to  herself  in  which  to  care 
for  her  children.  For  this  work  she  would  receive 
the  sum  of  one  dollar  per  day,  with  which  to  pro- 
vide for  herself  and  her  children  the  three  primal 
necessities  of  food,  clothing,  and  shelter.  Out  of 
her  abundant  leisure  she  could  also  give  them  that 
essential  of  child-life,  the  mother's  care  and  love. 
But  unfortunately  at  the  times  when  the  mother 
was  at  home,  the  children  were  either  asleep  or 
away  at  school.  She  and  they  became  strangers. 
They  grew  up  without  fostering  care;  they  became 
little  savages,  and  the  last  the  writer  heard  of  them 
they  were  throwing  fire  at  each  other.  This  is  a 
single  case  of  which  there  are  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands, one  might  almost  say  millions,  in  our  mod- 
ern civilized  countries. 

In  ancient  and  medieval  times  no  such  thing 
would  have  been  possible.  The  failure  of  the  fa- 
ther would  have  been  far  less  serious  to  the  chil- 
dren. The  family  was  there  with  its  overshadow- 
ing power  and  care,  and  the  family  was  organized 
as  an  economic  unit.  These  children  were  related 
to  it,  organically.  As  long  as  the  family  existed 
these  children  could  share  in  the  product  of  its 


86        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

industry  and  in  due  time  be  themselves  incorpo- 
rated into  its  productive  machinery. 

As  it  is  now,  the  failure  of  the  father  means  the 
destitution  of  the  children.  If  the  mother  falls 
under  the  task  of  a  double  duty,  then  society  takes 
the  children  and  herds  them  into  institutions  which 
are  unfitted  for  the  work  of  rearing  the  human 
young.  The  child  from  the  orphan-asylum  goes 
handicapped  into  the  world. 

We  have  contrivances  for  relieving  the  hen  of 
the  necessity  of  hatching  her  chickens,  and  it  is 
quite  as  successful  as  the  natural  method.  The 
reason  for  this  is  that  the  relation  of  the  hen  to  the 
chickens  is  so  transitory  in  its  nature  that  she  can 
well  be  dispensed  with  after  she  has  performed  the 
essential  function  of  laying  the  egg.  As  soon  as 
the  chicken  emerges  from  the  egg,  it  can,  after  a 
few  hours,  stand  upon  its  feet  and  run  about  to 
secure  its  own  living.  Two  weeks,  more  or  less, 
is  all  the  time  that  the  hen  devotes  to  her  young 
after  she  has  ushered  them  into  the  world.  The 
chick  learns  nothing  from  the  hen.  It  comes  into 
the  world  with  all  its  habits  formed,  and  it  can 
correlate  itself  at  once  to  the  conditions  of  its  exist- 
ence. Not  so  with  the  human  young.  No  inven- 
tion of  man  will  be  able  to  dispense  with  the  serv- 
ices of  the  mother.  Nature  demands  that  the  child 
shall  have  the  mother-care  for  a  long  period  after 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  MOTHEE        87 

its  birth.  We  could  as  well  invent  a  machine  to 
conceive  the  child,  to  build  up  its  little  skeleton 
and  lay  on  that  skeleton  flesh,  and  through  that 
flesh  send  the  vein  that  carries  the  blood,  as  to 
hope  to  provide  in  an  artificial  way  for  the  nurture 
of  the  child  after  its  birth.  The  man  child  and 
the  female  of  his  species  does  not  live  on  bread 
alone  but  by  every  word  that  proceeds  from  the 
mother's  mouth.  The  great  mortality  among  chil- 
dren in  orphan-asylums  and  other  institutions  is 
not  occasioned  by  the  unsanitary  conditions  alone, 
but  the  main  cause  of  it  is  the  lack  of  mother-love. 
A  child  to  flourish  must  be  taken  in  its  mother's 
arms  and  fondled,  it  must  see  in  the  mother's  eye 
the  light  of  life,  and  it  must  hear  in  the  mother's 
voice  the  sound  of  human  words  that  waken  it  to 
consciousness.  Artificiality  in  the  breeding  and  the 
care  of  children  must  confine  itself  purely  to  the 
material  environment;  when  it  attempts  to  inter- 
fere with  the  great  art  of  nature,  then  it  can  be 
nothing  but  a  bungler  and  destroy  that  which  it 
tries  to  preserve.  The  mother  is  essential  to  the 
child. 

The  civilized  nations  are  beginning  to  recognize 
this  and  by  legislation  are  seeking  to  provide  for 
the  mother  the  means  of  caring  for  her  child.  We 
are  at  last  coming  to  see  that  it  is  quite  as  neces- 
sary to  feed  the  stomach  of  the  child  as  it  is  to 


88        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

cram  its  brain.  The  mother's  pension  is  already 
in  force  in  many  places,  and  it  will  be  universal 
as  the  new  civilization  progresses.  We  shall  social- 
ize the  food  of  the  child  but  we  shall  not  socialize 
the  mother.  The  revolutionary  nature  of  this 
method  must  be  clear.  We  have  passed  out  of  one 
region  into  another.  The  child  is  no  longer  de- 
pendent upon  the  solitary  pair,  but  it  is  the  com- 
mon care  of  the  great  community. 

Without  motherhood  there  can  be  no  community. 
Except  she  bring  forth  her  young,  the  people  per- 
ish. So  necessary  is  her  function  that  she  must 
be  encouraged  to  perform  it  and  that  in  the  best 
possible  manner.  As  things  are  to-day,  we  penal- 
ize the  woman  if  she  bears  a  child.  We  lay  upon 
her  a  load  of  anxiety  which  is  heart-breaking.  We 
tell  her  to  take  no  thought  of  the  morrow,  but  we 
do  not  reveal  to  her  any  providence  that  cares  for 
her  morrow.  We  compel  her  to  live  under  a  sys- 
tem that  thinks  of  her  only  as  a  commodity  in  the 
market,  which  separates  her  from  her  young  during 
the  days  of  her  brooding,  and  makes  her  mother- 
hood an  hourly  anguish.  Except  for  the  fact  that 
we  are  changing  this  order,  it  were  better  that  the 
woman  should  never  bear  a  child,  and  thousands  of 
women,  yes  millions  of  them,  are  to-day  declining 
that  function  because  they  cannot  see  in  it  for  them- 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  MOTHER        89 

selves  any  joy,  nor  can  they  hope  for  their  children 
a  happy  life. 

Our  modern  world  is  still  managing  its  affairs 
as  if  the  ancient  family  were  in  existence.  Chil- 
dren must  be  born  within  the  family  if  they  are  to 
be  received  with  honor  into  the  world.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly true  that  the  family  has  played  a  great 
part  in  the  regulation  of  the  sexual  relation  and  the 
consequent  production  of  children.  As  long  as  the 
family  was  intact,  and  families  were  in  possession 
of  the  sources  of  wealth  and  the  means  of  produc- 
tion, only  the  children  of  the  family  had  any  part 
or  lot  in  the  industrial  establishment  of  the  family 
and  the  products  of  its  labor.  If  they  were  born 
of  slaves,  they  lived  as  slaves  and  labored  for  the 
family  but  did  not  themselves  own  or  enjoy  the 
fruits  of  their  labor.  If  they  were  out-family  chil- 
dren, born  beyond  the  pale  of  wedlock  they  had, 
except  if  they  were  children  of  kings  and  nobles, 
to  bear  forever  the  badge  and  burden  of  shame. 
The  bar  sinister  did  not  disgrace  the  noble  house, 
-but  among  the  middle  and  the  lower  classes  the  bar 
sinister  meant  exile  from  all  that  makes  human  life 
worth  the  living.  Women  who  bear  children  ille- 
gally are  subjected  to  a  treatment  so  cruel,  so  de- 
grading, that  for  such  women  death  is  a  blessed 
release.     Nature  and  human  law  are  in  conflict  and 


90        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

in  this  conflict  we  crush  out  year  by  year  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  precious  lives. 

When  these  facts  are  recognized  the  community 
may  be  compelled  to  modify  very  materially  its 
thoughts  in  relation  to  child-production.  With 
every  passing  day  the  question  of  fatherhood  is 
becoming  less  and  less  important.  It  is  mother- 
hood that  demands  attention,  and  we  may  in  the 
future  be  glad  enough  at  the  advent  of  a  child  to 
welcome  it,  no  questions  asked.  Nor  will  we  very 
long  permit  the  cruelty  which  is  now  practised  of 
separating  the  child  from  the  mother,  simply  be- 
cause the  innocent  has  not  complied  with  all  the 
requirements  of  our  conventions.  The  cry  of  im- 
morality which  may  be  raised  at  this  point  is  not 
pertinent.  The  immorality  is  here  doing  its  work 
visiting  anguish  upon  thousands  and  the  immorality 
is  the  consequence  of  convention  and  law.  We  do 
not  seem  to  be  able  to  hinder  nature  in  her  great 
desire  for  life.  The  unborn  are  in  her  womb,  and 
she  will  bring  them  forth  whether  our  laws  justify 
her  or  not.  The  whole  matter  of  motherhood  is  in 
the  crucible.  Our  conceptions  of  it  must  undergo 
radical  change,  sentiment  must  give  place  to  rea- 
son ;  we  must  look  facts  in  the  face  and  must  come 
at  last  to  the  conclusion  that  a  mother  is  a  mother 
no  matter  what  the  male  element  of  parentage  may 
be,  and  as  such  she  and  her  young  are  the  care  of 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  MOTHER        91 

the  corninunity.  One  hardly  dares  to  preach  so 
merciful  a  doctrine  as  this  to  the  cruel  age  that 
now  is,  but  one  will  preach  it  because  one  believes 
that  this  cruel  age  must  give  place  to  a  wiser,  a 
better,  a  more  merciful  age  that  will  not  drive  the 
woman  and  child  into  the  wilderness,  because  na- 
ture has  wrought  in  them  the  marvel  of  continued 
life. 


IV 

THE   EMANCIPATION    OF   THE   CHILDREN 

THE  prophet  Isaiah  in  speaking  of  the  evils  that 
afflicted  the  city  of  Jerusalem  mentioned  that 
the  most  disastrous  was  the  fact  that  children  ruled 
over  the  city.  The  reign  of  the  younger  over  the 
elder  was  in  the  thought  of  the  ancient  world  the 
last  great  disaster  that  could  befall  a  community. 
Power  by  right  belonged  to  the  senior.  Age  bore 
the  scepter  until  it  was  taken  out  of  its  dead  hand, 
and  even  then  that  dead  hand  reached  out  from  the 
grave  to  control  the  family  life.  Before  the  insti- 
tution of  the  family,  age  had  asserted  its  right  to 
govern.  After  the  family  was  established,  that 
right  was  never  disputed.  The  father  retained  his 
lordship  over  the  house  as  long  as  he  lived.  Chil- 
dren were  expected  to  stand  in  his  presence  silent 
and  uncovered.  Any  disrespect  upon  the  part  of 
youth  was  visited  with  severe  punishment.  This 
relation  of  the  young  to  the  old  was  maintained 
with  such  strictness  that  it  has  been  the  last  of  the 
ancient  customs  to  feel  the  effects  of  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  which  has  destroyed  the  family 

92 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  THE  CHILDREN"      93 

as  an  economic  unit  and  related  its  individual  mem- 
bers to  the  community  as  independent  atoms. 

But  at  last  this  revolutionary  wave  has  lifted  the 
children  upon  its  crest  and  carried  them  into  power. 
On  every  side  we  are  hearing  the  complaint  that 
age  is  no  longer  respected,  that  the  children  are 
froward:  that  there  is  no  law  in  the  household, 
that  the  young  are  not  only  assuming  control  of 
themselves  but  are  compelling  the  obedience  of  the 
elders. 

The  passing  of  parental  authority  is  a  fact  which 
thrusts  itself  upon  the  attention  in  a  manner  so 
obtrusive  that  it  is  no  longer  possible  for  any  one 
to  be  ignorant  of  this  changed  relation.  In  our 
American  life,  this  is  the  one  thing  that  is  remarked 
by  the  stranger  within  our  gates.  In  the  older  na- 
tions, the  more  ancient  thought  still  has  such  power 
that  it  is  holding  the  children  in  check.  The  pre- 
cept "  Children  obey  your  parents "  is  not  alto- 
gether obsolete  beyond  the  seas;  but  with  us  it  is 
largely  a  dead  letter.  Parents  to-day  persuade 
their  children,  they  do  not  command  them,  and 
where  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  between  the 
parent  and  the  child  in  three  cases  out  of  five  it 
is  the  parent  that  yields  and  not  the  child.  The 
best  mode  of  ruling  the  young  of  the  house  is  for 
the  head  of  the  house,  if  it  have  one,  to  ascertain 
if  he  can  what  the  younger  elements  desire  to  do 


94        THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

and  then  request  those  elements  to  do  that  thing. 
The  present  writer  was  once  possessed  of  a  dog, 
which  he  desired  to  teach  obedience.  The  dog  had 
a  habit  of  going  under  the  bed  to  lie  down.  Every 
time  his  master  commanded  him  to  come  from  un- 
der the  bed  he  disobeyed,  and  the  master  was  com- 
pelled, if  he  would  have  obedience,  to  command  the 
dog  to  go  under  the  bed  or  to  stay  under  the  bed. 
The  will  of  the  master  had  to  conform  to  the  will 
of  the  dog.  So  it  is  in  our  modern  family.  The 
will  of  the  child  is  paramount,  and  the  will  of  the 
parent  must  conform  to  that  if  there  is  to  be  peace 
at  home. 

We  elders,  like  the  prophet  Isaiah,  see  in  this 
state  of  affairs  the  ruin  of  our  household.  Where 
the  children  rule  confusion  comes,  we  say;  and  we 
look  forward  to  a  disaster  that  shall  be  destructive 
of  all  that  is  best  in  humanity.  But  the  forces  of 
evolution  know  what  they  are  about  in  thus  for  the 
time-being  bringing  the  children  to  the  top  and 
leaving  the  parents  at  the  bottom.  The  rule  of  the 
elder  has  had  its  day  and  accomplished  its  end. 
The  family  as  an  institution  with  its  law  of  abso- 
lutism was  a  hindrance  to  progress.  The  children 
were  compelled  to  be  mere  replica  of  the  parents. 
The  family  belief  held  all  the  members  of  the  fam- 
ily in  leash;  the  child  that  dared  to  go  beyond  the 
family  thought  found  itself  a  family  outcast  and 


THE  EMANCIPATION"  OF  THE  CHILDREN      95 

had  to  seek  the  wilderness  for  the  protection  of  its 
life.  Had  the  family  continued  in  unbroken  power, 
through  all  the  ages,  we  should  have  to-day  the 
same  way  of  thinking  and  living  that  prevailed  on 
the  northern  slopes  of  the  Persian  hills  twenty  thou- 
sand years  ago.  It  was  the  venturesome  child  that 
broke  the  family  custom,  fled  from  the  family  con- 
trol, and  set  up  new  things  for  itself  in  the  wilder- 
ness, that  has  been  the  progressive  element  in  hu- 
man history. 

Organization  and  life  are  always  in  conflict. 
They  are  necessary  each  to  the  other,  but  they  can- 
not live  in  peace  together.  Organization  limits  life, 
and  to  limit  life  is  to  destroy  it.  Life  having  used 
one  organization  to  the  utmost,  then  turns  upon  it 
and  destroys  it  and  builds  a  new  organization  for 
its  new  and  larger  living.  This  is  the  perpetual 
tragedy  of  existence.  The  great  conflicts  are  within 
the  body:  the  old  endeavoring  to  hinder  the  new, 
and  the  new  rising  to  assert  itself  over  the  old. 
Reverence  and  adventure  are  at  odds  with  one  an- 
other in  every  family,  every  church,  every  political 
party  that  is  now,  ever  has  been,  or  ever  will  be. 
At  certain  periods  reverence  is  in  control.  These 
are  the  halcyon  periods  of  the  aged ;  then  they  float 
upon  the  waves  of  life,  upborne  by  the  strength  of 
the  young ;  and  they  have  for  the  young  that  feeling 
of  contempt  which  man  always  has  for  those  who 


96        THE  RISE  OP  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

serve  biin.  But  when  the  spirit  of  adventure  is 
strong,  then  the  aged  are  in  the  trough  of  the  sea 
and  destruction  is  their  fate  if  they  do  not  quickly 
adjust  themselves  to  the  facts  of  their  existence. 
If  the  old  insist  upon  ruling  when  the  young  are 
full  of  the  enthusiasm  of  new  life,  then  old  heads 
are  shorn  from  old  shoulders  aud  the  new  life  comes 
by  violence.  Maeterlinck  in  his  Intelligence  of 
the  Plants  tells  us  that  the  great  problem  of  the 
plant  is  to  get  its  young  out  from  under  its  own 
shadow ;  if  the  seed  of  the  plant  falls  directly  within 
the  circle  in  which  that  plant  itself  lives,  then  that 
seed  has  little  or  no  chance  for  existence.  The 
plant  deprives  the  seed  of  soil  and  light,  and  the 
seed  cannot  germinate.  Therefore  we  have  in  na- 
ture all  those  wonderful  contrivances  by  means  of 
which'  the  plants  scatter  their  seed  and  enable 
generations  to  succeed  each  other.  The  plant,  be- 
ing fixed  in  its  position,  must  thus  contrive  to  throw 
its  seed  out  into  the  distance.  The  young  and  the 
old  in  plant  life  cannot  flourish  in  the  same  circle 
of  soil  and  light.  Now  while  this  is  essentially  a 
plant  problem,  it  is  also  a  problem  ©f  animal  life. 
The  little  animal,  too,  must  escape  from  the  shadow 
of  its  parent,  if  it  is  to  live.  It  is  well  for  the  hen 
for  a  week  or  two  to  gather  its  young  under  the 
shadow  of  its  wings,  but  if  it  continues  this  shad- 
owing unduly  the  young  perish.     The  young  must 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  THE  CHILDREN      97 

be  left  free  to  expand  its  own  wings,  to  shelter 
itself,  if  it  is  to  increase  in  wisdom  and  in  favor 
with  God  and  man.  Therefore  it  is  that  nature 
has  inspired  youth  with  the  spirit  of  adventure. 
It  is  the  burr  surrounding  the  young  life  that  at- 
taches itself  to  whatever  comes  in  the  way  and  car- 
ries the  young  life  out  from  under  the  power  of  the 
old. 

We  are  to-day  in  one  of  these  great  periods  of 
adventure.  Our  wTorld  is  changing  more  rapidly 
than  at  any  other  period  in  its  history.  Change 
has  always  been  the  lot,  not  only  of  humanity,  but 
of  all  existing  things ;  but  humanity  to-day  is  mov- 
ing with  ever  accelerated  rapidity  from  one  basis 
of  life  to  another.  Man  has  climbed  the  mountain 
of  life  to  one  of  its  plateaus  and  is  now  on  the 
downward  grade  toward  a  new  valley  from  which 
he  will  make  his  next  ascent.  Old  things  are  pass- 
ing away,  and  as  a  consequence  all  things  are  be- 
coming new,  and  this  work  of  change  is  necessarily 
in  the  hands  of  the  young.  If  the  old  are  to  have 
their  way  progress  will  cease.  But  this  is  impossi- 
ble, because  you  cannot  stop  motion  that  is  in  full 
sway  downward.  You  may  check  it  with  your 
brakes,  but  to  stop  it  means  disaster.  You  must 
either  hold  it  still  between  the  top  and  the  bottom 
and  get  nowhere,  or  else  you  must  let  it  glide  down- 
ward as  gently  as  possible  to  its  destined  resting- 


98        THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

place.  We  cannot  hold  humanity  in  its  present 
position.  We  are  now  nowhere.  We  have  lost  the 
family  as  an  economic  unit,  and  we  have  not  yet 
created  an  econolnic  unit  to  take  its  place.  The 
decline  of  parental  authority  is  owing  almost  en- 
tirely to  this  unrecognized  fact. 

When  the  children  were  dependent  upon  the  par- 
ent for  the  necessities  of  life,  and  assisted  the  parent 
in  the  production  of  those  necessities,  obedience  was 
natural,  necessary,  and  seemly;  but  now  that  the 
children  are  no  longer,  after  they  have  attained  to 
full  childhood,  receiving  their  support  from  the 
parent,  such  obedience  is  neither  possible  nor  de- 
sirable. The  children  are  not  bound  to  their  par- 
ents for  the  simple  fact  of  existence.  The  parents 
did  not  have  the  children  in  mind  when  they  were 
indulging  themselves  in  the  pleasures  of  marriage. 
And  if  to-day  the  parents  do  not  provide  for  the 
children  the  great  necessities  of  life,  then  the  chil- 
dren are  not  bound  to  the  law  of  obedience.  If 
they  are  almost  from  their  infancy  compelled  to 
make  their  own  way  in  the  world,  then  they  must  be 
left  free  to  exert  their  powers  according  to  the  de- 
mands that  are  made  upon  them  outside  the  home. 
The  boy  or  girl  working  in  the  store  or  the  factory 
is  the  better  judge  of  what  is  to  be  done  there  than 
the  father  or  the  mother  who  has  had  no  experi- 
ence in  such  situations. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  THE  CHILDREN      99 

Another  reason  for  the  decline  of  parental  au- 
thority is  the  fact  that  in  the  present  world  the 
children  live  under  a  divided  allegiance.  The  com- 
munity has  taken  upon  itself  the  oversight  of  the 
education  of  the  young.  It  leaves  to  the  elders  no 
choice  in  this  matter;  it  has  provided  a  vast  system 
richly  endowed  for  the  purpose  of  training  the  chil- 
dren to  enter  equipped  upon  the  work  of  life.  The 
teacher  is  an  authority  in  many  respects  paramount 
to  the  parent.  The  child  in  school  receives  impres- 
sions not  in  harmony  with  home  instruction.  That 
sentimental  seat  of  learning,  the  mother's  knee,  has 
lost  its  standing  in  the  educational  world.  When 
the  teacher  says  one  thing  and  the  mother  says 
another,  then  the  child  must  decide  between  the 
two,  and  this  makes  the  child  independent.  Com- 
ing home  from  school,  the  mother  says  to  the  child 
"  So  and  so,"  the  child  answers :  "  My  teacher  says 
it 's  not  that  way,  it  is  so  and  so.''  The  mother 
replies :  "I  do  not  care  what  your  teacher  says ; 
it  is  as  I  say."  The  child  may  for  the  sake  of 
prudence  be  silent ;  but  its  little  mind  is  questioning 
the  infallibility  of  the  mother,  and  to  question  is 
to  deny.  Moreover,  the  child  learns  in  the  school 
a  great  many  things  of  which  the  parents  are  ig- 
norant, and  when  the  little  one  comes  with  his 
question  to  the  father  and  the  mother  and  finds 
them  unable  to  answer  it  they  fall  at  once  in  his 


100       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

esteem.  He  knows  more  than  father  and  mother, 
and  this  knowledge  he  uses  as  a  pedestal  upon  which 
to  climb  and  to  make  himself,  in  his  own  conceit, 
intellectually  taller  than  the  elders  of  his  house- 
hold. The  effect  of  the  school  has  been  to  make 
wellnigh  impossible  the  exercise  of  parental  dis- 
cipline. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  home  constantly  inter- 
feres with  the  authority  of  the  school.  When  the 
teacher  makes  an  assertion  the  boy  is  apt  to  answer : 
"  My  father  says  that  is  not  so  " ;  and  the  teacher 
responds :  "  I  do  not  care  what  your  father  says, 
what  I  say  is  true."  The  boy  then  begins  to  doubt 
the  infallibility  of  the  teacher,  and  again  we  say 
to  doubt  is  to  deny.  The  young  mind  is  no  longer 
ready  to  accept  the  say-so  of  the  teacher  as  proof 
conclusive.  The  disciple  escapes  from  under  the 
bondage  of  the  teacher  and  begins  to  examine  freely 
into  the  facts  for  himself,  and  that  is  disastrous  to 
discipline.  The  teacher  must  abdicate  the  throne 
of  authority  and  must  undertake  the  much  more 
difficult  task  of  intellectual  guidance.  He  can  no 
longer  say  to  his  pupil :  "  Thus  it  is  "  ;  but  he  must 
say :  "  Thus  I  think  it  is,"  and  leave  the  pupil  at 
liberty  to  test  the  validity  of  his  thought. 

The  inestimable  advantages  that  come  from  this 
loss  of  home  and  school  authority  more  than  com- 
pensate for  the  evils  consequent  upon  this  new  state 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  THE  CHILDEEN      101 

of  affairs.  Humanity  will  be  the  gainer  by  at  least 
ten  years  in  every  generation.  The  young,  no 
longer  under  slavish  dependence  upon  the  old,  will 
be  able  to  exert  their  higher  powers  at  a  much 
earlier  period  in  their  lives.  When  we  have  once 
settled  down  and  accepted  the  inevitable,  and  no 
longer  seek  to  exercise  an  authority  which  has 
passed  away,  we  shall  find  the  children  becoming 
more  gentle,  more  reverential  toward  us  and  toward 
our  teachings.  The  president  of  one  of  our  great 
universities  was  in  the  habit  of  asking  questions 
instead  of  making  assertions.  He  would  always 
say:  "Do  you  not  think  thus  and  so?"  This 
gave  to  his  teaching  a  persuasive  power  which  mere 
dogmatism  can  never  possess.1  It  somewhat  en- 
feebled his  influence  in  a  dogmatic  world,  but  it 
was  an  evidence  that  he  at  least  had  grasped  pres- 
ent conditions  and  knew  that  the  day  of  dogma  was 
done  and  that  the  human  mind  was  no  longer  to 
be  crammed  with  precepts;  it  was  to  be  fed  upon 
the  raw  material  of  thought,  rather  than  upon  or- 
ganized thought  itself.  The  home  and  the  school 
must  cease  to  contend  for  authority  over  the  mind 
of  the  young.  They  must  cooperate  in  guiding  the 
young  into  the  ways  of  wisdom  but  when  they  have 
found  the  way  they  must  simply  say  to  the  chil- 
dren :     "  Walk  therein !  "  and  then  leave  the  chil- 

i  Hon.  Seth  Low,  Columbia  University. 


DIVERSITY  OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA  UBKAKi 


102       THE  ELSE  OF  THE  WOBKING-CLASS 

dren  themselves  to  go  onward,  and  extend  their 
journey  beyond  the  path  already  marked  out  by 
the  elder. 

A  further  reason  for  the  loss  of  discipline  in  the 
home  is  that  the  young  of  the  middle  and  the  work- 
ing-class must  enter  very  early  upon  the  activities 
of  life.  The  great  mass  of  the  children  of  the  work- 
ing-class do  not  attend  school  beyond  the  age  of 
fourteen.  Then  they  take  up  the  task  of  earning 
their  own  living  and  keep  at  that  task  if  they  are 
fortunate  until  they  die.  Only  recently  has  the 
age-limit  been  fourteen  years.  The  present  writer 
began  his  business  career  at  the  age  of  eleven. 
When  a  boy  or  a  girl  must  leave  the  home  with  the 
morning  light  and  come  back  to  it  in  the  dusk  of 
evening,  having  spent  all  the  day  amid  the  varied 
activities  of  some  manufacturing  or  commercial  es- 
tablishment, then  the  home  has  ceased  to  be  the 
mold  of  their  lives.  They  are  made  what  they  are 
by  the  influences  of  the  store,  the  factory,  or  the 
shop  —  and  not  by  the  influences  of  the  home.  It 
can  be  seen  at  once  that  this  state  of  affairs  has 
destroyed  the  home  in  all  that  is  proper  to  the  home. 
The  men  and  the  women  who  are  now  in  active  life, 
the  boys  and  the  girls  who  are  thronging  our  streets 
are  not  the  product  of  our  homes,  they  are  the  out- 
come of  our  commercialized  community.  It  seems 
strange  that  so  patent  a  fact  should  be  so  completely 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  THE  CHILDREN       103 

overlooked.  You  hear  the  cry  going  up  all  the  time 
that  this  or  that  social  doctrine  if  accepted  will  de- 
stroy the  home ;  when  it  is  perfectly  evident  to  any 
one,  who  will  see  things  as  they  are,  that  the  home 
is  destroyed  already.  Unless  we  can  bring  back 
into  the  home  the  great  industries  and  keep  the 
father  and  the  mother  and  the  children  in  hourly 
contact,  we  can  never  have  again  that  home  which 
in  old  times  did  produce  and  rear  its  young,  stamp- 
ing the  young  with  the  family  stamp,  centering  their 
life  in  the  family  life,  and  making  of  the  family  a 
unit. 

Because  the  children  are  thus  early  independent 
of  the  parents,  they  necessarily  become  restive  un- 
der parental  authority.  The  wage  of  the  boy  and 
the  girl  is  paid  directly  to  them.  It  is  theirs,  and 
they  do  not  see  why  they  should  spend  their  own 
according  to  the  dictates  of  some  one  else,  rather 
than  to  suit  their  own  pleasure.  As  soon  as  there 
is  a  decided  difference  of  opinion  between  the  chil- 
dren and  the  heads  of  the  household,  then  the 
younger  element  withdraws  from  that  household 
and  sets  up  for  itself.  All  our  cities  have  in  them 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  boys  and  girls  be- 
tween sixteen  and  twenty  who  for  the  sake  of  a 
greater  independence  are  living  on  their  wage, 
away  from  home.  The  parents  are  thus  early  de- 
prived  of   their   assistance   and   that   desolation, 


104       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

which  is  now  the  lot  of  the  working-class  father 
and  mother,  falls  upon  them.  It  does  not  wait 
for  their  old  age,  it  overshadows  their  middle  life. 
It  is  impossible  at  the  present  time  to  forecast 
the  outcome  of  existing  conditions.  But  one  thing 
is  certain :  the  old  family  with  its  centralized  au- 
thority, with  its  unified  interest,  with  its  great 
formative  influences,  with  its  beautiful  amenities  is 
not  only  going,  it  is  gone.  There  still  remain  some 
vestiges  of  its  former  greatness;  there  are  still 
millions  of  children  that  love  their  parents  and  of 
parents  that  love  their  children.  Humanity  is 
slowly  adjusting  itself  to  its  new  environment; 
parents  no  longer  exercise  authority  —  they  per- 
suade, they  do  not  command:  the  children,  no 
longer  antagonistic,  have  for  their  parents  a  friend- 
ship based  upon  a  mutual  esteem  that  has  grown 
up  during  the  period  when  they  have  all  shared 
the  family  life.  But  the  parent  no  longer  desires 
to  be  dependent  upon  the  child,  nor  will  their  re- 
lationship bear  the  strain  of  any  great  interference 
on  the  part  of  the  parent  with  the  life  of  the  child. 
The  new  world  is  in  many  things  more  desirable 
than  the  old.  The  gain  —  take  it  for  all  in  all  — 
is  greater  than  the  loss.  We  are  still  in  a  forma- 
tive period;  we  have  all  the  crudeness  of  youth, 
but  we  are  growing  out  of  this  into  a  larger  and 
better  life  than  the  world  has  ever  experienced  be- 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  THE  CHILDREN      105 

fore.  We  who  are  passing  away  can  do  so  with  the 
thought  that  the  world  of  our  children  will  be  bet- 
ter than  was  the  world  of  our  childhood. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  present  writer,  whipping 
was  a  daily  occurrence.  Children  were  humiliated 
in  the  presence  of  their  elders  and  in  the  sight  of 
one  another.  Brute  force  ruled  in  the  home  and  in 
the  school.  The  child  found  itself  in  the  presence 
of  grown-ups  who  treated  it  with  contempt,  harsh- 
ness, and  cruelty.  The  writer  was  fortunate  in  his 
youthful  home  and  school  relations  but  he  remem- 
bers two  whippings,  which  he  received,  one  at  home 
and  one  at  school,  as  examples  of  the  unjust  treat- 
ment of  the  young  by  the  old. 

It  was  this  injustice  that  made  childhood  so  long. 
Every  child  watched  and  waited  for  childhood  and 
youth  to  pass,  even  as  they  that  watch  for  the  morn- 
ing. The  emancipation  of  the  children  has  been 
costly,  but  it  is  worth  the  price. 


THE  OUT-FAMILY   WOMAN 

IT  is  the  constant  assertion  of  the  moralist  that 
the  family  is  the  protection  of  the  woman.  The 
home  is  her  sanctuary,  within  which  her  virtue  is 
sheltered  from  the  lust  of  men.  Any  questioning 
of  this  fact  is  looked  upon  as  blasphemy,  and  he 
who  dares  to  say  ought  to  the  contrary  is  cast  out 
as  a  social  heretic  to  be  shunned  by  all  right-think- 
ing people. 

It  is  true  that  the  family  has  guarded  the  virtue 
of  the  woman,  incorporated  into  the  family  as  long 
as  she  belongs  to  the  family.  But  as  we  have  al- 
ready hinted,  this  guardianship  of  the  virtue  of  the 
woman  was  not  because  virtue  in  itself  was  es- 
teemed, but  because  the  family  desired  to  protect 
itself  from  alien  seed.  The  family  is  the  creation 
of  the  male.  The  man  instituted  it  in  his  own  in- 
terest. It  came  into  existence  with  private  prop- 
erty in  lands.  Its  purpose  was  to  secure  to  the  is- 
sue of  the  owner  of  the  land  the  inheritance  of  the 
family  estate.  Very  early  in  the  history  of  the 
family  the  man  asserted  his  divine  right  of  rule 
over  the  family.     He  established  that   right   not 

106 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  107 

only  in  himself  but  also  in  his  eldest  male  descend- 
ant. He  himself  reserved  the  right  to  preside  over 
the  destinies  of  the  family  from  his  tomb  after  his 
death.  To  be  secure  in  his  seed  he  must  have  the 
absolute  right  to  the  exclusive  cohabitation  with  a 
given  woman.  He  must  of  a  certainty  know  his 
own  child ;  there  must  be  no  egg  of  the  cuckoo  laid 
in  his  nest,  and  because  of  this  the  chastity  of  the 
wife  was  guarded  with  a  fierce  jealousy;  her  tres- 
pass was  punished  with  most  fearful  penalties. 
She  was  secluded  from  the  companionship  of  other 
men;  she  was  shut  in  to  the  company  of  the  one 
man  who  owned  her  not  only  sexually  but  in  every 
other  relation  in  life.  He  was  the  only  man  who 
could  talk  to  her  freely,  who  could  walk  with  her  by 
the  way.  He  and  she  were  merged,  so  that  her  ex- 
istence became  his.  The  woman  belonged  to  the 
man,  but  the  man  never  belonged  to  the  woman. 

In  the  household  the  woman  who  was  placed  in 
the  office  of  the  wife  had  also  the  oversight  of  the 
house.  She  was  employed  in  the  work  of  produc- 
ing children  and  also  of  providing  for  them  their 
food  and  clothing.  She  had  the  headship  of  an  in- 
dustrial establishment.  Her  value  to  her  husband 
was  not  only  sexual,  it  was  economic  as  well.  Be- 
cause of  this  she  gradually  attained  to  a  place  of 
dignity  in  the  household  and  through  the  household 
in  the  community.     The  community  depended  upon 


108       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

lier  industry,  because  it  was  of  the  surplus  of  the 
household  that  the  community  lived.  So  the  wife 
was  held  in  honor;  though  she  was  subordinate  to 
the  man  in  all  things,  he  was  yet  compelled  be- 
cause of  her  sexual  and  economic  importance  to  pay 
her  respect,  to  provide  for  her,  and  to  give  her  some 
share  of  his  authority.  It  was  in  the  home  that 
the  woman  acquired  this  place,  this  honor,  this  dig- 
nity. The  wife  and  the  daughter  are  the  family 
assets,  while  the  family  is  an  economic  unit :  they 
are  treasured  by  the  family  because  they  are  the 
contributors  to  the  family  wealth. 

But  the  security  of  the  wife  and  the  daughter 
has  been  purchased  at  a  great  price  by  humanity. 
When  we  are  told  that  the  home  is  the  security  of 
the  woman,  we  assert  that  that  statement  needs  to 
be  modified  by  saying  that  the  home  is  the  blessing 
of  some  women  and  the  curse  of  others.  If  we  take 
womankind  as  a  whole,  it  is  doubtful  whether  in 
the  course  of  human  history  woman  as  woman  has 
found  the  home  a  curse  or  a  blessing.  Granting 
that  within  the  home  woman  has  found  all  that  her 
nature  demands  for  its  development,  we  have  still 
the  vast  multitude  of  out-family  women  to  con- 
sider. 

Before  the  establishment  of  the  family,  there  was 
no  such  thing  as  an  out-family  woman.  The 
women  of  the  tribe,  or  of  the  still  more  primitive 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  109 

horde,  all  lived  the  common  life  of  the  tribe. 
There  was  no  law  governing  the  exercise  of  the 
sexual  function  and  consequently  there  was  no  sin. 
The  women  and  the  men  came  together  as  do  the 
birds  of  the  air,  or  the  beasts  of  the  field,  or  the 
fishes  of  the  sea.  They  paired  according  to  their 
affinities.  The  female  lured  its  mate,  the  male 
courted  his  female,  they  united,  they  separated,  and 
there  was  no  one  to  say  nay  to  any  conceit  they 
might  take.  It  is  well  for  us  to  bear  in  mind  that 
it  was  during  this  period  that  the  human  form  was 
evolved  from  the  non-human.  The  children  of  the 
earlier  periods  were  for  the  most  part  love-chil- 
dren; the  man  desired  the  woman  and,  except  in 
cases  of  violence,  the  woman  desired  the  man  when 
they  came  together.  This  freedom  of  affection  to- 
gether with  the  liberty  to  roam  and  the  exercise 
that  was  required  in  obtaining  the  food-supply  were 
the  forces  by  which  the  human  form  were  per- 
fected. By  these  men  reached  the  upright  posi- 
tion, and  developed  the  body  until  it  became  a  thing 
of  beauty. 

If  we  compare  the  Teutonic  races  as  they  emerged 
from  barbarism  into  civilization  with  their  descend- 
ants of  to-day,  we  shall  see  what  man  has  lost  dur- 
ing these  ages  of  so-called  culture.  It  is  true  that 
at  this  earlier  period  the  Teuton  was  living  in  pairs 
and  the  faithfulness  of  the  one  man  to  the  one 


110       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

woman  was  established;  but  long  before  this  the 
Teuton  had  acquired  those  physical  characteristics 
which  made  of  him  the  Viking  and  the  Crusader. 
As  we  stand  at  the  street-corner  of  our  modern 
cities  and  watch  the  crowds  go  by,  and  see  the  multi- 
tude of  undersized  men  and  women,  pallid,  anemic, 
ugly,  we  are  appalled  as  if  we  were  in  the  presence 
of  a  fallen  race.  We  conclude  that  our  present 
methods  of  child-production  must  be  faulty  else  we 
should  not  have  these  deplorable  results. 

With  the  establishment  of  the  family,  women 
were  divided  into  two  classes,  the  women  of  the 
family  and  the  out-family  women.  At  no  period  in 
human  history  have  all  the  women  been  organized 
into  the  family.  A  goodly  proportion  of  them  have 
always  existed  outside  that  institution,  and  they 
have  warred  against  it. 

In  the  earlier  period  of  the  family  history,  the 
out-family  woman  held  a  recognized,  and  in  many 
respects,  a  desirable  position.  In  some  ways  she 
was  the  superior  of  the  family  woman,  and  many 
women  of  that  day  chose  to  be  free  rather  than  to 
be  bound  by  family  ties.  It  is  significant  that  the 
term  "  free  woman  "  was  applied  by  the  Greeks  to 
the  out-family  woman. 

The  out-family  woman  performed  for  the  com- 
munity certain  duties  impossible  for  her  sister 
within  the  family.     The  secluded  life  of  the  matron 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  111 

and  the  daughter  kept  her  ignorant,  stupid,  uncom- 
panionable. Her  sole  duty  was  to  play  the  part  of 
the  bee  in  the  hive.  The  matron  was  the  queen  bee 
whose  function  it  was  to  produce  the  young,  and  the 
single  women  within  the  family  were  the  working- 
bees  by  wThose  labor  the  family  was  sustained. 
These  women  secluded  within  a  jealous  seclusion 
had  no  part  or  lot  in  what  was  going  on  in  the  out- 
side world.  Politics  were  unknown  to  them;  they 
took  some  part  in  the  great  religious  festivals,  but 
during  the  greater  part  of  their  lives  they  were  com- 
pelled to  endure  the  cramping,  deadening  narrow- 
ness of  the  family  life. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  ancient  custom,  the  men 
of  the  earliest  period  divided  the  practical  from  the 
pleasurable  elements  of  the  sexual  function.  They 
kept  company  with  their  wives  from  a  sense  of  duty 
and  for  the  purpose  of  procreating  children,  but  for 
their  pleasure  they  chose  the  companionship  of  the 
out-family  woman.  Not  only  were  the  men  thus 
favorable  to  the  woman  who  was  not  incorporated 
in  the  family  organization,  but  she  also  was  the 
mistress  of  the  gods.  Among  the  various  duties 
performed  by  the  out-family  woman  was  that  of 
yielding  herself  within  the  temple  of  the  gods  to  the 
worshipers  of  the  gods  as  an  act  of  religion.  This 
gave  to  her  the  dignity  of  a  priestess.  She  passed 
her  days  in  happiness,  and  when  she  grew  tired  of 


112      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

her  life  within  the  sacred  groves,  she  had  only  to 
withdraw  and  upon  the  riches  which  she  had 
amassed  in  return  for  her  religious  offering  of  her 
body  she  lived  in  peace  and  plenty  and  honor  for 
the  rest  of  her  days.  We  in  modern  times  look  back 
with  horror  to  this  condition  of  society,  and  there 
were  in  it  germs  of  evil  that  multiplied  until  the 
disease  created  by  those  germs  destroyed  that  civil- 
ization. But  whether  we  have  anything  to  boast 
over  that  time  in  the  matter  of  the  out-family 
woman  is  very  doubtful.  The  separation  of  the  sex 
principle  from  the  godhead  has  made  forever  im- 
possible any  return  to  the  worship  of  the  groves. 
But  in  place  of  the  evils,  consequent  upon  such  a 
perversion  of  the  sexual  principle  as  was  manifested 
in  the  worship  of  Venus,  we  have  other  evils  quite 
as  disastrous  to  the  moral  life  of  man.  It  will 
never  be  possible  again  for  a  young  man  to  find  as 
Alcibiades  did  the  prosperity  of  religion  in  the 
fact  that  the  women  who  were  devoting  themselves 
to  the  services  of  the  gods  were  of  more  than  usual 
beauty  and  that  the  men  who  resorted  to  their  com- 
pany did  so  with  more  than  usual  ardor.  By  this 
argument  Alcibiades  sought  to  prove  to  the  young 
men  of  Athens  that  their  religion  was  not  on  the  de- 
cline. 

The  free-woman  not  only  ministered  to  the  gods, 
she  also  presided  over  the  affairs  of  State.     In  no 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  113 

department  of  life  is  it  well  for  man  to  be  alone,  and 
when  the  Aryan  man  secluded  his  family  women  in 
the  home  and  shut  them  out  from  all  participation 
in  public  matters,  he  had  to  find  some  other  woman 
to  assist  him  in  the  work  of  government.  And  so 
among  the  Athenians  we  find  the  out-family  woman 
playing  the  most  important  part.  Of  the  matron? 
of  Athens  not  a  famous  name,  except  that  of  Xan- 
tippe,  has  survived  into  history.  But  hetserse 
have  left  their  names  and  deeds  as  an  integral  part 
of  the  story  of  one  of  the  most  glorious  periods  of 
human  achievement.  Aspasia  was  co-ruler  of 
Greece  with  Pericles :  she  inspired  that  great  states- 
man with  her  wisdom,  and  Grecian  gossip  went  so 
far  as  to  say  that  she  composed  some  of  his  greatest 
orations.  These  free  women  were  the  constant 
companions  of  the  statesmen,  the  philosophers,  the 
poets,  and  the  artists  of  Greece,  and  it  is  to  their  in- 
fluence that  we  owe  much  if  not  all  that  is  beautiful 
in  the  Greek  civilization.  These  women  were  pub- 
licly recognized,  no  shame  attached  to  them,  no 
blame  was  laid  upon  their  mode  of  life.  Socrates 
could  visit  Theodote  and  counsel  her  as  to  the  best 
methods  whereby  to  gain  and  keep  the  affection  of 
her  lovers,  and  Greece  saw  in  that  action  of  Socrates 
nothing  unworthy  of  the  great  philosopher. 

Among  the  Romans,  who  at  the  beginning  were 
small  farmers,  the  family  women  lived  more  in  the 


114      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

open  than  they  did  in  the  neighboring  peninsula 
of  Greece.  The  woman  had  to  be  abroad  to  look 
after  the  family  affairs.  The  Romans  were  a 
plainer  folk,  more  prosaic;  and  they  did  not  have 
the  same  jealousy  concerning  the  women  that  pre- 
vailed in  countries  farther  East.  The  Roman  ma- 
tron was  more  the  equal  of  her  husband  than  was 
the  Grecian  matron,  but  even  she  did  not  share  with 
him  in  any  of  the  responsibilities  of  public  affairs. 
She  was  mistress  of  the  house,  and  there  her  power 
ended.  The  Roman  had  nothing  of  the  delicacy  of 
the  Greek  in  matters  of  love.  The  wedding  feasts 
of  the  Latin  were  characterized  by  a  vulgarity  that 
was  an  evidence  of  the  low  esteem  in  which  the 
sexual  relationship  was  held.  The  Roman,  like  the 
modern  Latin,  was  intensely  jealous  of  the  woman 
with  whom  for  the  time-being  he  was  in  love;  but 
when  his  ardor  ceased,  the  fire  of  his  jealousies  died 
away,  and  the  Roman  matron  was  never  remark- 
able for  her  chastity.  The  case  of  Lucretia  was  ex- 
ceptional. The  talk  of  the  Roman  soldiers  about 
the  camp-fire  was  the  loose  talk  of  men  who  were 
loose  in  their  relations  with  women.  The  free 
woman  never  acquired  in  Rome  the  dignity  to  which 
she  attained  in  Greece,  and  as  a  consequence  the 
Roman  never  developed  those  finer  qualities  of  hu- 
man nature  which  find  their  expression  in  poetry, 
painting,  and  sculpture.     The  religion  of  Rome  had 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  115 

in  it  nothing  of  the  poetic  beauty  that  has  made  the 
Greek  mythological  period  the  priceless  heritage 
of  humanity.  The  Eomans  were  fierce  in  their  lust 
and  when  they  had  acquired  the  means  of  self-in- 
dulgence they  carried  that  indulgence  so  far  that  it 
destroyed  them.  They  perished  through  their  vio- 
lation of  the  delicacies,  the  amenities,  and  the 
beauties  of  the  love-relationship. 

There  were  among  the  Romans  in  every  period 
men  and  women  who  had  no  part  or  lot  in  the 
prevailing  licentiousness.  It  was  among  the 
Romans  that  the  Stoic  philosophy  with  its  bans 
upon  pleasure  had  the  largest  following,  and  it  was 
the  virtuous  element  of  the  Roman  population  that 
flocked  into  the  Christian  church  and  set  up  there 
a  new  morality  which  denied  to  the  sexual  passions 
any  goodness,  which  saw  in  matter  itself  the  evil 
that  afflicted  the  world,  and  which  permitted  even 
the  indulgence  of  marriage  only  as  a  concession  to 
the  weakness  of  humanity. 

But  this  Puritan  element  in  the  Roman  world 
was  not  sufficiently  strong  to  control  the  life  of  the 
people  and  consequently  the  Roman  civilization 
perished  in  its  own  corruption. 

The  historian  Tacitus  in  the  Ger mania  l  dwells 
with  bitterness  upon  the  contrast  between  the  chas- 
tity of  the  German  wife  and  the  Roman  matron. 

i  Tacitus,  Germania,  Bonn  Edition,  passim. 


116       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

He  tells  us  that  among  the  Germans  the  wife  was 
faithful  to  her  husband  and  the  husband  to  the 
wife.  The  picture  that  Tacitus  draws  of  German 
purity  must  be  taken  with  allowance,  because  his 
mind  was  inflamed  against  the  women  of  his  own 
people  whose  wickedness  was  open  to  his  investiga- 
tion. When  writing  of  the  Roman  woman  he  was 
expressing  disgust  at  what  he  himself  had  seen  and 
of  what  he  had  first-hand  knowledge;  but  all  that 
he  knew  of  the  Germans  was  a  matter  of  hearsay. 
It  is,  however,  highly  probable  that  Tacitus  did  give 
expression  to  the  truth  when  he  described  the  Ger- 
man woman  as  possessed  of  a  chastity  unknown  to 
the  majority  of  her  Latin  sisters.  The  conditions 
of  life  under  which  the  German  woman  lived  were 
favorable  to  purity.  There  were  no  out-family 
women  among  the  Germans.  The  family  had  not 
succeeded  in  establishing  itself  as  the  economic  unit 
of  the  German  people.  They  were  still  living  under 
the  tribal  form  of  organization.  The  tun  or  town 
was  the  economic  unit.  They  held  their  land  for 
the  most  part  in  common.  Their  food-supply  was 
derived  from  their  flocks  and  their  herds  more  than 
from  the  cultivation  of  the  land.  They  were  con- 
stantly on  the  move.  They  lived  in  tents,  in 
wagons,  and  on  horseback.  In  this  arduous  way  of 
living,  the  woman  was  the  equal  of  the  man.  She 
migrated  with  him  from  land  to  land,  as  he  went  on 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  117 

his  careers  of  conquest.  She  was  with  him  on  the 
field  of  battle  and  if  the  enemy  came  too  near  the 
wagons,  her  strong  arm  was  a  defense  to  the  chil- 
dren and  the  stuff.  This  mode  of  life  was  not  con- 
ducive to  any  undue  indulgence  of  the  passions  of 
love.  The  men  and  the  women  were  mated,  they 
were  not  married.  Eeligion  had  not  yet  made  the 
marriage  bond  indissoluble.  We  have  very  little 
knowledge  of  what  went  on  in  the  daily  life  of  those 
roaming  peoples,  but  we  do  know  that  when  they 
settled  down  in  the  lands  of  middle,  western,  and 
southern  Europe,  they  conformed  in  a  large  measure 
to  the  customs,  manners,  and  laws  of  the  peoples 
whom  they  conquered.  France,  Italy,  and  Spain 
latinized  the  German.  In  Germany  and  England, 
the  Teuton  maintained  his  distinctive  race  charac- 
teristics of  law  and  language,  but  even  in  these 
countries  he  was  subjugated  by  the  Latin  Church 
and  came  largely  under  the  influence  of  the  Roman 
law. 

Eeligion  had  sanctified  the  marriage  relation ; 
had  imposed  upon  the  man  the  obligation  of  fidelity ; 
had  denied  him  the  companionship  of  more  than 
one  wife  and  had  declared  that  any  putting  away  of 
the  wife  after  marriage  was  a  sin  to  be  punished 
by  excommunication  from  the  salvation  of  the 
church,  thus  making  the  sinner  liable  to  eternal 
torments.     This  which  added  to  the  safety  and  the 


118      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

dignity  of  the  family  woman,  became  an  additional 
eurse  upon  the  out-family  woman.  The  condition 
of  the  out-family  woman  in  the  Middle  Age  was  not, 
however,  so  bad  as  the  church  laws  would  imply. 
It  is  true  that  the  ban  of  the  church  was  upon  her ; 
she  was  branded  as  a  sinner  and  was  denied  the 
rites  of  the  Christian  religion.  But  in  spite  of 
these  efforts  of  the  religious  organization,  nature 
would  have  its  way.  The  church,  because  of  its 
excess,  denying  as  it  did  any  virtue  to  the  passion 
of  love,  holding  that  passion  itself  to  be  shameful, 
overstepped  the  mark.  It  is  one  of  the  curiosities 
of  human  thought  that  the  great  thinkers  of  the 
church  tried  to  separate  maternity  from  sexuality. 
The  birth  stories  that  surround  the  advent  of  the 
Founder  of  Christianity  have  as  their  central  figure 
the  Madonna,  the  woman  who  without  tasting  the 
sweets  or  enduring  the  degradations  of  human  love 
gave  birth  to  a  child.  In  accordance  with  this  con- 
ception, the  church  held  that  only  they  were  re- 
ligious who  denied  altogether  the  sexual  passion. 
The  monk  and  the  nun  was  the  ideal  of  the  Middle 
Age. 

In  the  outer  world  of  breeding,  feeding,  and  fight- 
ing, life  went  on  just  about  as  it  did  before  these 
outre  doctrines  were  preached  for  the  acceptance  of 
men.  The  enforced  celibacy  of  the  clergy  gave  a 
new  occupation  to  the  out-family  woman.     Unless 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  119 

history  is  altogether  wrong,  this  woman  became 
the  companion  and  the  comforter  of  the  men  who 
guided  the  destinies  of  the  church.  The  relation- 
ship between  the  man  devoted  to  the  church  and  the 
woman  whose  life  was  free  from  church  control 
gave  rise  to  many  of  the  tragedies  and  many  of  the 
romances  of  Medieval  times.  Abelarde  and  Helo- 
ise  are  examples  of  what  was  going  on  in 
those  days,  when  the  church  was  striving  to  quell 
nature,  in  high  places  and  in  low.  Petrarch  visited 
Avignon  during  the  pontificate  of  Clement  VI,  and 
he  has  left  us  a  picture  of  the  papal  city  that  almost 
puts  ancient  Rome  to  shame.  The  city  on  the 
Rhone  was  thronged  with  the  most  celebrated 
courtesans  of  Europe.  The  licentiousness  of  Rome 
itself  in  the  time  of  the  Renaissance  is  too  well 
known  to  need  comment.  All  through  this  period 
the  out-family  woman  found  her  place  beside  the 
great  men  of  the  church. 

Not  only  did  she  console  the  leisure  hours  of  the 
clergy,  but  she  was  also  the  mistress  of  the  king  and 
the  noble.  Her  place  was  honorable  and  she  has 
left  her  name  in  story.  Diana  of  Poitiers  was  held 
in  equal  honor  by  the  French  people  with  their  gal- 
lant King,  Henri  II.  The  stories  of  the  Decam- 
eron and  the  Heptameron  reveal  to  us  the  easy  vir- 
tue that  prevailed  among  the  royalties  and  nobilities 
of  the  XIV  and  XV  Centuries  and  tell  us  how  large 


120      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

a  place  was  played  by  the  out-family  woman  dur- 
ing these  periods. 

Not  only  did  the  out-farmily  woman  in  those  days 
have  the  companionship  of  kings,  but  it  was  also 
within  her  right  to  become  the  spouse  of  God.  The 
priestess  of  the  temple  was  reproduced  in  the  nun. 
The  Christian  Church  did  not  admit  women  into 
its  official  priesthood;  but  the  women,  not  waiting 
on  official  sanction,  soon  developed  a  priesthood  of 
their  own.  The  monastic  system  gave  to  women 
their  opportunity.  In  every  place  the  convent  was 
built  over  against  the  monastery.  In  the  convent 
the  out-family  woman  had  a  safe  refuge  from  the 
lust  of  men  and  the  scorn  of  the  family  woman. 
Dedicating  herself  to  God,  the  nun  found  in  the 
ecstasies  of  devotion  an  outlet  for  her  pent-up  emo- 
tions. If  like  S.  Catharine  she  became  the  spouse 
of  Christ  she  was,  in  her  own  estimation  and  in  the 
thought  of  her  generation,  more  highly  honored 
than  any  wedded  wife  in  Christendom.  The  women 
of  the  convent  have  left  on  record  expressions  of 
their  affection  for  their  Lord  which  exhaust  the  vo- 
cabulary of  love ;  their  intercourse  with  their  spirit- 
ual spouse  exceeded  the  joy  of  the  bride  in  the  arms 
of  the  bridegroom. 

Not  only  did  the  monastic  system  give  the  unmar- 
ried, out-family  woman  emotional  satisfaction,  it 
also  afforded  her  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  her 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  121 

faculty  of  organization.  The  convent  was  her 
home.  From  the  abbess  to  the  novice  every  woman 
had  her  allotted  place  and  task  in  the  household 
economy.  Her  hours  divided  between  prayer  and 
labor  gave  interest  and  serenity  to  her  life.  Safe 
within  the  convent  walls  she  passed  her  days  in 
peace  and  she  died  in  peace  and  she  slept  in  peace 
in  her  tomb  under  the  altar,  awaiting  the  general 
resurrection  in  the  last  days.  At  no  period  in  the 
world's  history  has  the  out-family  woman  found  so 
favorable  a  place  as  that  which  was  hers  in  the  con- 
ventual life  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Up  to  this  day  it 
is  the  glory  of  the  Catholic  Church  that  it  has  a 
place  for  the  out-family  woman.  Of  its  sisters  of 
charity  may  be  spoken  the  words  of  the  prophet: 
"  More  are  the  children  of  the  desolate  than  the 
children  of  the  married  wife,  saith  the  Lord." 

With  the  coming  of  the  Protestant  Reformation 
all  this  was  changed.  The  monastic  life  had  lost  its 
virtue.  The  monastery  and  the  convent  having 
grown  rich  and  powerful  were  no  longer  the  home 
of  the  meek  of  the  earth.  Pride,  lechery,  and 
drunkenness  defiled  these  holy  places.  The  younger 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  nobility  entered  the  mon- 
astery and  the  convent  as  an  easy  and  agreeable  way 
of  getting  a  living  without  working.  The  serfs  on 
the  convent  land  worked  hard  and  long  that  the 
women  of  the  convent  might  live  softly.     The  con- 


122       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

vents  of  England  were  the  easy  prey  of  Henry  VIII 
and  Cromwell,  because  the  life  within  them  was  cor- 
rupt. 

With  the  Protestant  Keformation  virginity  ceased 
to  have  religious  value  and  lost  its  place  of  honor. 
The  marriage  of  Luther  was  its  death  blow.  The 
clergy  who  embraced  the  new  faith  eagerly  followed 
the  example  of  their  leader  and  since  his  day  the 
Protestant  clergy  have  been  the  most  married  men 
in  the  world. 

Under  the  Protestant  regime  the  ancient  doctrine 
of  the  subordination  of  woman  was  revived  in  all 
its  rigor.  Every  woman  was  held  to  be  the  prop- 
erty of  some  man.  The  only  honorable  estate  for 
the  woman  was  that  of  marriage.  Failing  to  marry 
she  was  without  standing  in  the  world.  The  term 
"  old  maid  "  was  applied  to  every  unmarried  woman 
over  thirty  as  a  term  of  reproach.  The  best  fate 
such  a  woman  could  hope  for  was  to  find  a  home 
with  some  relative  where  she  could  make  herself 
useful  and  by  self-suppression  secure  tolerance  from 
her  married  sister.  The  maiden  aunt  has  been  an 
institution  in  Protestant  countries. 

Any  lapse  from  virtue  made  of  the  woman  an  out- 
cast. A  single  error  was  fatal.  Her  own  father 
would  turn  her  from  his  door,  her  own  mother 
could  not  shelter  her.  Driven  to  a  life  of  prostitu- 
tion this  out-family  woman  has  revenged  herself 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  123 

upon  the  society  that  disowned  her  by  sowing  within 
it  the  seeds  of  death. 

The  industrial  revolution  which  has  been  so  dis- 
astrous to  the  family  has  been  of  the  greatest  ad- 
vantage to  the  out-family  woman.  She  is  no  longer 
dependent  upon  father,  husband,  or  brother,  but 
she  is  making  her  own  way  in  life.  It  is  becoming 
as  common  for  the  woman  to  be  without  the  family 
as  for  the  man.  She  no  longer  keeps  her  hours,  she 
does  not  seclude  herself  by  day  or  by  night.  She 
goes  about  her  business,  whatever  that  business  may 
be,  without  asking  permission  of  any  man.  The 
wife  and  the  daughter  in  the  modern  home  are  more 
or  less  under  the  restraint  of  ancient  custom,  but 
only  so  long  as  they  see  fit  to  remain  in  the  home. 
The  wife  when  she  pleases  can  leave  the  roof  of  her 
husband  and  find  self-supporting  occupation  in 
business  life.  The  daughter  is  compelled  in  a  mul- 
titude of  cases  to  seek  such  occupation  whether  she 
so  desires  or  not.  The  question  of  sex-relationship 
is  ignored  in  our  modern  social  arrangements. 
Men  and  women  associate  as  if  no  such  force  were 
in  existence.  The  consequence  is  that  we  are  face 
to  face  with  a  condition  never  before  experienced  by 
man.  The  women  have  escaped  from  the  family 
and  they  are  not  yet  under  community  control.  It 
is  true  that  the  ancient  ways  of  thinking,  the  cus- 
toms and  the  laws  of  the  past  still  overshadow  the 


124       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

life  of  the  woman,  and  she  is  compelled  to  live  in 
new  ways  as  if  these  new  ways  were  not,  and  the 
old  were  still  with  us. 

The  out-family  woman  to-day  is  a  sexual  menace, 
a  vast  social  waste,  and  a  danger  to  the  present 
political  order.  We  are  beginning  to  awaken  to 
the  fact  that  there  is  in  our  midst  a  sickness  that 
destroys  in  the  noon-day  and  a  pestilence  that  walks 
in  darkness.  We  have  degraded  the  out-family 
woman  until  she  herself  has  become  a  source  of  deg- 
radation to  society.  We  have  made  it  impossible 
by  our  social  arrangements  for  a  vast  number  of 
women  to  enter  into  the  marriage  relation,  as  legal- 
ized by  the  state,  and  have  condemned  them  either 
to  a  life  of  solitary  chastity  or  else  to  a  secret  illicit 
indulgence  of  this  strongest  element  of  their  nature. 
It  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  present  writer  to  dwell 
upon  the  evils  that  afflict  modern  society  because  of 
the  prostitution  of  woman.  He  will  refer  his 
readers  to  the  work  of  Havelock  Ellis  and  other 
writers  upon  this  subject.  But  he  does  plead  with 
all  who  read  his  words  for  those  unfortunate, 
sacrificial  victims  whose  blasted  lives  have  been  the 
price  all  along  through  history  that  man  has  paid 
for  whatever  of  good  the  monogamic  family  has 
brought  to  him.  The  names  that  have  been  applied 
to  this  woman  are  no  longer  mentionable.  She  is 
the  pitiful  creature  inhabiting  the  stews  of  Athens 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  125 

and  Rome,  the  brothels  of  every  city  of  Medieval 
Europe,  the  disorderly  houses  of  modern  times. 
She  flits  about  the  streets  after  nightfall  to  prey 
and  to  be  preyed  upon.  The  time  is  past  when  we 
can  dispose  of  her  by  means  of  the  policeman's  club, 
the  night  court,  the  Island,  and  the  House  of  Ref- 
uge. She  is  a  necessary  product  of  our  social  ar- 
rangements, and  until  we  have  altered  our  plan  in 
life  so  as  to  give  some  honorable  place  to  the  out- 
family  woman;  or  until  we  have  organized  our 
family  upon  so  large  a  scale  that  there  can  be  no 
out-family  woman,  then  we  must  give  to  this  un- 
fortunate result  of  our  blindness  the  pity,  the  com- 
passion, the  uplifting  help  which  can  alone  save  her 
and  us. 

It  is  not  however,  the  woman  who  has  openly  com- 
mitted herself  to  a  life  that  is  not  within  the  pale 
of  family  respectability  that  is  most  to  be  pitied. 
It  is  the  woman  who  under  the  adverse  circum- 
stances of  our  time  is  struggling  to  keep  herself 
from  falling  under  the  condemnation  of  the  social 
world.  In  the  middle  class,  and  among  the  labor- 
ing-people, marriage  is  becoming  every  day  more 
and  more  hazardous.  The  young  people  are  awak- 
ening to  this  fact  and  are  not  willing  to  commit 
themselves  to  the  perils  of  matrimony  before  they 
see  something  like  an  assurance  of  an  economic 
basis  for  the  family  life.     It  is  possible  for  the 


126       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

young  woman  to-day  to  earn  her  own  living:  to  be 
free  from  the  restraints  and  cares  of  the  family 
life,  and  she  will  not  give  up  that  freedom  unless 
she  believes  that  in  return  for  her  sacrifice  she  will 
receive  in  the  marriage  estate  as  much  security  and 
comfort  as  she  is  able  to  obtain  for  herself  while  a 
single  woman.  The  young  man  is  earning  f  10  or 
$15  a  week ;  the  young  woman  nearly  as  much.  If 
they  pool  their  salaries  and  set  up  an  establishment 
they  can  live  in  comparative  comfort;  but  the  in- 
stant they  marry,  this  pooling  becomes  almost  im- 
possible. The  duties  of  the  wife  and  the  stenog- 
rapher conflict.  The  wife  if  she  is  true  to  her  duty 
must  take  care  of  her  husband  in  all  that  pertains 
to  his  personal  comfort,  cook  his  food,  make  his 
bed,  wash  his  clothing,  and  in  many  cases  make  her 
and  his  garments.  This  is  work  enough,  if  prop- 
erly done,  to  occupy  her  time  and  exhaust  her 
strength.  The  stenographer  must  be  down  at  her 
office  at  eight  o'clock  with  an  alert  mind,  with 
muscles  untired,  and  must  be  in  her  place  until 
nightfall.  Now  it  is  impossible  that  the  stenog- 
rapher should  do  what  the  wife  does  and  yet  be  able 
for  her  own  task ;  as  a  consequence  when  the  clerk 
and  the  stenographer  marry,  the  income  of  the 
stenographer  ceases  and  both  must  subsist  upon  the 
earnings  of  the  clerk.  But  the  stenographer  has 
acquired    a    certain    independence;    has   indulged 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  127 

tastes,  has  been  spending  money  in  a  way  incom- 
patible with  the  narrow  means  upon  which  she  and 
her  husband  must  live. 

The  young  people  can  no  longer  hide  this  state 
of  affairs  from  themselves.  They  know  that  they 
cannot  indulge  themselves  in  the  luxuries  of  mar- 
ried love  with  its  house  and  its  children.  Eco- 
nomic forces  forbid  the  banns  between  these  young 
people,  and  what  are  they  to  do?  Society  says  to 
them :  "  You  are  to  live  the  solitary  life  in  the 
midst  of  a  great  community,  you  are  to  deny  the 
fact  of  your  manhood  and  your  womanhood.  You 
are  no  longer  to  think  of  yourselves  as  one  flesh, 
but  you  are  to  consider  yourselves  as  individual 
units  in  the  great  economic  world.  The  system  un- 
der which  you  live  exploits  you  and  your  loves  for 
its  own  purposes  and  you  indulge  yourselves  in  the 
affections  of  the  heart  at  your  own  peril." 

In  every  great  commercial  and  industrial  center 
there  are  thousands  upon  thousands  of  young  men 
and  women  of  marriageable  age  who  are  not  incor- 
porated in  any  family  organization.  The  young 
men  are  freely  indulging  themselves  in  all  that  re- 
lates to  the  sexual  life.  They  do  not  deny  them- 
selves the  least  of  its  pleasures.  They  are  living  on 
a  lower  sexual  plane  than  that  of  the  hordes  in 
which  humanity  originated.  These  young  men  are 
a  curse  to  themselves  and  a  curse  to  mankind. 


128      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

They  are  spreading  far  and  wide  that  dreadful  dis- 
ease, Syphilis,  that  to-day  more  than  the  white 
plague  is  responsible  for  the  misery  and  premature 
death  of  millions. 

The  out-family  woman  is  the  prey  of  this  out- 
family  man,  and  even  of  the  family  man.  The 
dreadfulness  of  her  situation  in  modern  life  has  not 
yet  so  much  as  entered  in  to  the  minds  of  men. 
The  attention  of  the  reformer  is  fixed  altogether 
upon  the  so-called  fallen  woman,  whose  slavery  ex- 
cites anger  and  compassion;  but  the  condition  of 
the  white  slave  dreadful  as  it  is,  is  in  one  respect 
at  least  better  than  that  of  her  more  respectable 
sister.  The  woman  who  belongs  to  no  family,  who 
lives  in  a  little  room,  whose  daily  occupation  sup- 
presses the  forces  of  her  sexual  nature,  suffers  dis- 
tress that  does  not  afflict  the  woman  who  freely  in- 
dulges her  appetites.  There  are  thousands  of  these 
women  in  every  city.  After  their  day's  work  is 
over  they  hardly  dare  to  go  abroad  at  night  lest 
they  should  be  hunted  by  the  men  who  are  prowling 
in  the  streets  of  all  our  cities.  They  cannot  receive 
male  friends  in  their  rooms  without  exciting  odious 
suspicion.  For  companionship  they  must  gather 
with  other  women,  and  go  about  in  groups.  This 
is  as  harmful  to  the  nature  of  woman  as  it  is  to  the 
nature  of  man.  It  is  because  of  this  that  we  are 
having  a  return  to  the  unnatural  vices  that  dis- 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  129 

graced  the  ancient  civilizations.  As  it  was  in  the 
days  of  Paul,  men  are  turning  from  the  natural 
uses  of  the  women,  and  women  from  the  natural 
uses  of  the  man,  and  are  indulging  in  practices  ut- 
terly ruinous  to  both  the  body  and  the  soul.  These 
out-family  women  are  under  a  constant  restraint 
which  they  themselves  must  exercise  and  because 
so  much  of  their  life  force  goes  into  this  work 
of  unnatural  self-control  their  womanhood  is 
blighted,  they  become  unhappy  and  are  the  source 
of  unhappiness  to  all  who  are  round  about  them. 
There  is  nothing  more  pitiful  in  all  the  world 
than  the  case  of  the  young  woman  in  the  depart- 
ment-store, who  comes  out  of  a  Saturday  night 
after  she  has  been  standing  in  the  fetid  atmosphere 
of  that  establishment  for  twelve  hours,  exhausted 
physically,  mentally,  and  spiritually  and  finds  her- 
self on  the  street.  The  man  is  standing  there  with 
his  invitation  to  supper.  If  she  accepts  that  invi- 
tation she  knows  the  price  that  she  is  expected  to 
pay  for  it.  Too  many  of  these  exhausted  girls  are 
at  the  moment  willing  to  pay  the  price,  and  they 
do  pay  the  price,  and  the  Saturday-night  supper 
with  its  attendant  pleasure  becomes  a  habit  of  their 
lives.  Among  themselves  they  call  the  men  who 
provide  suppers  their  "  meal-ticket."  Nothing  in 
the  way  of  prostitution  is  so  disastrous  as  this. 
Yet  who  shall  blame  these  forlorn   creatures! 


130       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

They  are  the  waste  of  our  wasteful  society.  Na- 
ture created  them  for  love  and  happiness;  they 
were  to  cheer  the  lives  of  men  with  their  sweet 
companionship;  but  we  shut  them  up  all  day  in 
our  factories  and  in  our  stores,  and  make  of  them 
mere  automatons;  we  drive  them,  in  our  indus- 
trial machines,  up  to  and  beyond  the  point  of  ex- 
haustion; we  curse  them  and  brutalize  them  and 
then  we  send  them  out  of  our  shops,  our  stores,  and 
our  factories  to  their  little  lonely  room;  to  their 
lunch  tables;  we  deprive  them  of  everything  that 
woman  needs  whereby  to  sustain  her  womanhood, 
and  then  we  damn  them  if  they  go  wrong.  Sooner 
or  later  all  this  violation  of  the  laws  and  misuse  of 
the  forces  of  nature  will  accomplish  its  woeful  re- 
sult. Unless  some  way  out  is  found,  our  civiliza- 
tion will  perish  through  this  abuse  of  the  repro- 
ductive forces  as  the  civilizations  which  have  pre- 
ceded it  have  perished. 

We  can  hardly  estimate  how  much  of  charm  is 
lost  to  us  in  life  through  our  neglect  of  the  out- 
family  woman.  The  time  is  coming  when  we  will 
take  her  into  consideration;  not  because  we  fear, 
but  because  we  love.  Prejudices,  outworn  conven- 
tionalities will  have  to  give  place  to  better  thoughts 
and  wiser  methods.  Just  how  this  problem  is  to 
be  solved  no  one  at  present  can  say.  But  this  we 
know  that  society  must  take  up  the  work  of  re- 


THE  OUT-FAMILY  WOMAN  131 

organization  and  that  quickly.  All  this  outcry 
concerning  the  family  must  cease.  The  family  no 
longer  exists,  and  even  when  existing  the  family 
failed  to  solve  the  problem  of  sex.  The  family 
blessed  some  women  and  cursed  others.  All 
women  have  been  cramped  and  warped  by  it.  The 
family  that  centered  in  the  man,  and  existed  for 
the  man,  has  gone  and  it  is  well  that  it  has  gone. 

We  must  not  close  this  brief  discussion  of  the 
place  of  the  out-family  woman  in  modern  life  with- 
out remarking  that  once  again  the  out-family 
woman  has  found  the  refuge,  the  solace,  the  occu- 
pation of  her  life  in  the  service  of  religion.  She 
is,  however,  no  longer  a  spouse  of  the  gods,  she  has 
become  the  mother  of  humanity.  The  Catholic 
ideal  of  the  Madonna  is  when  taken  spiritually  a 
true  ideal.  We  have  among  us  to-day  women  who 
are  mothers,  and  yet  who  because  of  their  mother- 
hood have  renounced  the  sweets  and  the  degrada- 
tions of  mere  human  love.  They  are  the  priestesses 
of  humanity.  They  take  to  their  breast  the  for- 
saken children,  they  preside  over  the  new  family. 
This  modern  priestess  of  humanity  differs  alto- 
gether from  the  ancient  priestess  and  from  the 
medieval  nun.  She  renounces  the  physical  pleas- 
ures of  her  sex,  but  she  does  not  renounce  her  sex ; 
she  is  not  afraid,  she  goes  uncovered  and  unblush- 
ing into  the  company  of  men.     She  controls  them 


132       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

by  her  splendid  womanhood.  She  demands  of  them 
the  right  to  take  part  with  them  in  all  that  con- 
cerns human  living.  For  a  time  they  ridiculed, 
but  to-day  they  tremble.  They  are  beginning  to 
fight  this  woman,  because  in  her  they  see  and  feel 
the  coming  doom  of  that  world  which  man  has 
created  for  his  own  pleasure  and  in  his  own  inter- 
est. The  woman's  world  is  at  hand,  and  the  place 
of  man  in  that  world  will  be  altogether  different 
from  the  one  which  he  occupies  in  the  world  which 
he  has  made  for  himself. 


VI 

THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES 

QUITE  the  most  interesting  and  startling  phe- 
nomenon of  present-day  history  is  the  mil- 
itant suffragette  movement  in  England.  Enime- 
line  Pankhurst,  the  leader  of  that  movement,  is 
more  than  a  woman,  she  is  a  social  portent.  In 
her  a  great  idea  is  expressing  itself  in  a  way  that 
it  is  impossible  for  the  world  any  longer  to  ignore 
or  neglect.  Mrs.  Pankhurst  is  the  prophetess  of 
an  age  to  come,  the  martyr  of  a  new  religion.  She 
may  he  imprisoned  and  die  in  prison,  but  her  im- 
prisonment and  her  death  will  not  arrest  for  a 
moment  the  movement  which  she  is  directing.  In 
the  militant  suffragette,  the  struggle  for  the  rights 
of  women  has  entered  into  politics  and  it  will  re- 
main an  active  force  until  it  has  fully  accomplished 
its  purpose. 

This  movement  is  but  little  more  than  fifty 
years  old.  It  had  its  origin  just  prior  to  the  mid- 
dle of  the  nineteenth  century  when  a  few  women, 
most  of  them  single  women,  began  to  assert  them- 
selves and  to  claim  the  right  to  act  freely  in  the 
outward  political  and  social  world.     Some  of  them 

133 


134       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOBKING-CLASS 

refused  to  enter  the  family  and  such  of  them  as 
were  members  of  the  family  declined  any  longer  to 
be  confined  within  its  narrow  boundaries.  When, 
in  an  assembly  of  men,  Susan  B.  Anthony  stood  up 
to  speak,  the  men  laughed  and  the  women  gasped. 
Such  a  thing  as  a  woman  speaking  in  public  was 
unheard  of  and  a  violation  of  the  most  sacred  tra- 
ditions. From  that  little  beginning  we  have  now 
the  tremendous  manifestation  of  the  power  of 
woman  in  every  department  of  life. 

In  the  sphere  of  education  the  woman  has  claimed 
for  herself  and  has  secured  the  right  to  an  equal 
training  with  men.  In  our  high  schools  the  girl 
graduates  outnumber  the  boys.  Our  colleges  for 
women  are  increasing  every  day,  both  in  equipment 
and  in  the  number  of  their  students.  The  women 
have  not  only  invaded  the  educational  world,  they 
have  captured  it.  The  training  of  the  youth  of 
America  is  almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of  women. 
The  men  have  been  driven  from  this  occupation. 
If  a  man  to-day  is  in  the  teaching-profession  in  our 
common  or  high  schools  he  seems  as  sadly  out  of 
place  as  if  he  were  handling  a  needle  and  thread. 
In  the  higher  ranks  of  the  educational  profession 
man  in  a  measure  still  holds  his  own,  but  the 
woman  is  pressing  him  closely.  In  colleges  which 
are  exclusively  feminine,  the  women  are  already 
the  masters.     They  will  not,  perhaps,  for  a  long 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        135 

time,  be  admitted  to  the  teaching  force  of  the  ex- 
clusively masculine  institutions  of  learning.  But 
these  institutions  no  longer  hold  the  supreme  place 
in  the  educational  system  which  once  was  theirs. 
They  do  not  supply  the  teaching-force  of  the  coun- 
try. This  force  comes  from  the  colleges  for  women. 
It  is  a  fact  to  be  pondered  that  during  all  the 
formative  periods  of  life  our  lads  are  under  the 
influence  and  training,  not  of  men,  but  of  women. 
The  boys'  school  has  gone  out  of  existence, — only 
here  and  there  do  we  find  one  flourishing  in  Amer- 
ica. That  friction  of  boy  with  boy  under  the  eye 
of  the  master  which  was  so  important  an  element 
in  his  development  no  longer  prevails.  In  Eng- 
land, and  upon  the  Continent,  this  revolution  in 
educational  forces  has  not  gone  so  far  as  it  has 
in  the  United  States,  but  even  there  it  is  on  the 
way,  and  present  tendencies  indicate  that  this  revo- 
lution is  to  progress  until  all  over  the  Western 
World  the  woman  is  supreme  in  matters  of  educa- 
tion. 

The  break-up  of  the  family  has  released  the 
woman  from  the  duty  of  training  the  young  in 
the  home  and  placed  upon  her  the  duty  of  train- 
ing the  young  in  the  school.  The  new  era  has 
given  her  a  larger  sphere  and  made  her  the  educa- 
tional mother  of  a  more  numerous  offspring.  It 
is  impossible  for  the  mother  within  the  home  to 


136      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

do  anything  at  all  commensurate  with  what  the 
teacher  can  do  for  her  child  in  the  school.  This 
is  a  part  of  that  concentration  of  effort  and  divi- 
sion of  labor  which  has  created  the  modern  indus- 
trial world.  Education  is  now  an  industry.  It 
employs  its  workers,  it  brings  its  children  to  the 
great  buildings,  and  it  turns  out  its  product  accord- 
ing to  business  methods.  We  shall  never  return 
to  the  more  primitive  system  of  home  education, 
and  the  mother's  knee  will  never  again  be  the  seat 
of  childish  learning. 

We  have  socialized  education  and  by  so  doing 
have  brought  the  women  out  of  the  home  and  placed 
them  in  an  honorable  position  in  the  general  struc- 
ture of  society.  The  teaching  profession  has  been 
recognized  as  belonging  of  right  to  woman,  and  she 
who  undertakes  it  in  no  wise  loses  caste.  It  is  as 
respectable  to  be  a  teacher  as  it  is  to  be  a  married 
wife  or  an  unemployed  daughter  in  the  household. 
Social  necessity  gained  this  victory  for  woman, 
and  it  has  given  her  an  advantage  which  will  en- 
able her  at  last  to  accomplish  her  full  emancipa- 
tion. The  great  majority  of  teachers  are  in  the 
movement  for  securing  political  and  social  and 
legal  rights  for  their  sex.  They  are  a  mighty  army 
and  are  at  the  well-spring  of  social  life.  The  lads 
trained  by  these  young  women  come  out  of  the 
schools  with  their  minds  biased  in  favor  of  the 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PAEASITES        137 

equality  of  women  with  men  in  every  department 
of  life. 

In  the  business  world  the  woman  has  found  for 
herself  that  occupation  which  is  denied  her  in  her 
home.  She  has  not  yet  fully  reconciled  the  male 
world  to  this  new  state  of  affairs.  In  our  offices 
and  in  our  stores  the  presence  of  women  as  clerks 
and  saleswomen  was  up  to  a  recent  time  resented 
by  the  men ;  but  economic  necessity  was  more  pow- 
erful than  male  discontent.  Woman  being  the 
cheaper  commodity  was  bought  by  the  commercial 
world  in  place  of  the  dearer  strength  of  the  man. 
She  is  now  driving,  if  she  has  not  already  driven, 
man  out  of  the  field  of  salesmanship  so  far  as  the 
retail  business  is  concerned.  Women  do  the  work 
better  and  cheaper  than  the  men;  such  being  the 
case  the  men  must  by  the  law  of  commercial  neces- 
sity give  place  to  the  women.  To-day  that  class  of 
men  who  formerly  were  clerks  in  the  various  com- 
mercial establishments  are  being  driven  into  me- 
chanical and  servile  employments  and  have  lost 
their  place  in  the  middle  class  and  gone  down  into 
the  rank  of  the  workers.  The  effect  of  this  revo- 
lution is  not  yet  fully  realized.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
process  that  is  working  toward  that  radical  change 
which  is  to  make  out  of  the  modern  world  the  world 
that  is  to  come.  The  higher  ranks  of  the  business 
world  are  still  held  by  the  men,  and  those  in  the 


138      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

higher  positions  are  entrenching  themselves  against 
what  they  feel  to  be  a  coming  assault  of  the  women. 
The  heads  of  our  great  commercial  establishments, 
our  bankers,  the  captains  of  our  industries,  are  the 
rulers  of  the  present  age;  they  are  the  bitter  op- 
ponents of  the  movement  for  the  rights  of  women. 
It  is  against  these  that  the  women  are  arraying 
themselves  with  equal  bitterness  in  the  struggle 
for  their  greater  freedom.  These  chieftains  of  the 
business  world  together  with  their  immediate  sub- 
ordinates, the  higher  officials  and  the  smaller  mer- 
chants together  with  the  professional  class,  the 
lawyers  and  the  ministers  of  religion,  compose  the 
great  conservative  party  in  the  present  contest  for 
the  equality  of  women. 

The  agitation  for  the  rights  of  women,  with  a 
few  exceptions,  has  left  altogether  unaffected  the 
higher  ranks  of  the  social  order.  Among  the  no- 
bility of  Europe  and  the  very  wealthy  of  America 
and  of  all  countries  the  woman  who  is  contending 
for  the  equal  rights  of  her  sex  is  despised,  hated, 
and  feared.  The  women  of  the  upper  class  are  now 
beginning  to  organize  themselves  into  a  party  op- 
posing suffrage.  They  are  having  their  public 
meetings,  their  parades,  they  appear  before  the 
investigating  committees  and  are  throwing  the 
whole  force  of  upper-class  society  in  the  way  of 
this  movement  to  prevent  its  further  advance. 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        139 

It  is  surprising  to  find  the  large  majority  of  the 
wives  of  the  working-men  and  the  daughters  of  the 
working-men  whp  live  at  home,  without  outside 
employment,  indifferent,  or  antagonistic  to  the  con- 
tention for  the  rights  of  women.  It  is  the  tacit 
opposition  of  this  class  more  than  any  other  oppos- 
ing power  that  is  delaying  the  accomplishment  of 
the  full  emancipation  of  women.  The  condition  of 
the  working-woman  would  seem  to  place  her  nat- 
urally in  the  ranks  of  those  who  are  struggling  for 
the  betterment  of  woman's  life  in  the  world,  and 
the  strangeness  of  their  opposition  demands  ex- 
planation. 

We  find  that  explanation  in  the  make-up  of  the 
very  movement  itself.  All  of  the  leaders  of  the 
feminist  movement,  with  here  and  there  an  excep- 
tion, are  middle-class  women.  They  are  the  women 
of  the  households  that  are  well-to-do,  that  possess 
sufficient  for  the  family  to  live  on  in  comfort  and 
to  have  many  of  the  luxuries  of  present-day  life. 
The  middle-class  woman  has  been  affected  more 
than  any  other  by  the  great  changes  which  have 
taken  place  in  our  industrial  system  whereby  the 
home  has  been  bereft  of  much  that  formerly  be- 
longed to  it.  About  the  fifth  decade  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  woman  of  the  middle-class  fam- 
ily awakened  to  the  startling  fact  that  she  had 
really  nothing  to  do.     She  had  become  the  play- 


140      THE  KISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

thing  of  man.  She  had  been  reduced  to  the  posi- 
tion of  a  parasite.  She  had  to  employ  her  sex- 
power  to  acquire  her  place  in  the  world,  and  to 
depend  upon  that  power  to  maintain  her  place.  At 
that  period  a  woman  was  created  of  a  pattern  un- 
known to  nature  and  the  derision  of  art.  We  who 
have  passed  middle  age  remember  that  woman. 
She  still  lives  in  the  pages  of  Godey's  Lady's  Book. 
Now  take  that  feminine  journal  of  the  nineteenth 
century  and  lay  it  beside  the  Ladies'  Home  Jour- 
nal of  the  twentieth  and  the  reader  will  be  able  to 
compare  the  present-day  woman  with  her  grand- 
mother. The  woman  of  the  earlier  period  was 
created  to  answer  the  demands  of  her  time.  She 
conformed  to  the  conception  of  female  beauty  that 
then  prevailed.  Man  was  then  in  the  heyday  of 
his  lordship  so  far  as  the  middle  class  was  con- 
cerned. His  women  were  to  be  the  ornaments  of 
his  house,  and  the  coy  companions  of  his  hours  of 
ease.  Strength  was  the  essential  of  manhood: 
fragility  of  womanhood.  He  was  the  oak,  grown 
strong  in  the  open  air,  fighting  the  tempests  of  life : 
she  was  the  vine,  clinging  to  his  mighty  trunk  and 
sheltering  herself  from  the  wind  and  the  cold  by 
hiding  herself  amidst  his  branches  and  beneath  his 
leaves.  She  was  typified  as  a  sylph-like  creature, 
with  a  waist  patterned  after  that  of  the  wasp  which 
a  man  could  span  with  his  hands;  her  cheek  was 


THE  EEVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        141 

pale,  except  when  suffused  by  the  blushes  of  mod- 
esty, her  main  duty  was  to  conceal  the  fact  that  she 
was  a  woman,  if  her  feet  by  chance  should  peep 
out  from  under  her  petticoats  she  was  scandalized ; 
she  hardly  dared  to  walk  abroad  lest  the  winds 
should  ruffle  her  skirts  and  the  sun  gaze  too  boldly 
on  her  face. 

As  soon  as  this  woman  attained  to  womanhood, 
she  had  and  was  to  have  only  one  object  in  view, 
and  that  was  to  secure  a  lover  and  to  transform 
that  lover  into  a  husband.  The  whole  of  the  mid- 
dle class  of  the  English-speaking  world  was 
obsessed  with  this  conception.  It  took  possession 
of  literature ;  it  enthralled  painting ;  it  was  all  that 
people  had  to  talk  about.  A  woman  was  inter- 
esting from  the  time  when  she  began  to  receive  the 
attentions  of  men  until  one  of  them  had  chosen  her 
and  she  had  married  him.  With  the  ringing  of  the 
wedding  bells,  her  day  of  greatness  passed  and  she 
settled  down  into  the  prosaic  life  of  a  middle-class 
wife.  The  days  of  her  youth  were  the  precious 
days  of  her  romance.  She  was  supposed  to  sit  still 
and  wait  for  the  male  to  come  and  woo  her,  and 
it  was  a  misfortune,  if  that  wooing  ran  smoothly ; 
it  was  no  true  love  that  did  not  have  to  encounter 
rough  weather.  And  so  wre  have  had  the  modern 
novel  that  gives  us  the  history  ad  nauseam  of  these 
incidents  of  courtship.     Every  possible  complica- 


142       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

tion  has  been  worn  threadbare.  The  irate  father, 
the  villainous  rival,  and  the  one  or  two  or  three 
other  possibilities  have  been  repeated  over  and  over 
again  until  the  modern  novel  is  perishing  through 
inanition. 

After  her  marriage  the  middle-class  woman  found 
herself  combining  within  her  one  person  the  three 
offices  that  Demosthenes  assigned  to  three  distinct 
women.  She  was  the  wife,  the  mistress,  and  the 
concubine  of  her  husband.  Middle-class  morality 
had  banished  the  mistress  and  the  concubine  to 
outer  darkness  and  had  laid  the  duty  hitherto  per- 
formed by  them  upon  the  wife.  That  licentious- 
ness, if  it  were  licentiousness,  which  gave  occupa- 
tion to  the  mistress  and  the  concubine,  now  wasted 
itself  under  the  form  of  marriage  within  the  home 
itself. .  The  woman  had  no  rights  to  her  own  per- 
son. By  day  and  by  night  she  was  subject  to  her 
man.  She  was  kept  during  all  the  active  years  of 
her  womanly  life  bearing  and  caring  for  children. 
The  middle-class  man  brought  down  from  the  pre- 
ceding age  the  notion  that  children  were  a  family 
asset,  and  he  laid  the  duty  of  maternity  upon  his 
wife.  It  is  a  shame  to  our  manhood  that  during 
so  long  a  period  we  men  have  been  untrained  in  all 
that  pertains  to  the  rightful  relations  of  the  man 
with  the  woman,  and  that  we  have  acted  upon 
impulse  instead  of  being  guided  by  reason.     The 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        143 

condition  of  the  middle-class  woman  in  all  the  com- 
mercial nations,  and  especially  among  the  English- 
speaking  people  has  not  been  overproductive  of  hap- 
piness. After  the  day  of  romance  was  gone  the 
woman  settled  down  to  her  monotonous  life, 
brought  her  children  into  the  world,  struggled  to 
give  them  such  training  as  lay  within  her  power 
and  then  passed  on  into  a  barren  age.  She  was 
fortunate  if  she  was  able  to  secure  the  companion- 
ship of  her  man  and  these  two  could  live  together 
and  comfort  each  other  in  the  decline  of  life. 

A  strange  disaster  fell  upon  the  middle-class 
woman  during  the  early  and  middle  part-  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  It  was  during  that  time  that 
the  industrial  revolution  was  swiftly  accomplish- 
ing its  end.  Man  having  ceased  to  be  a  fighter  and 
hunting  being  no  longer  possible  had  to  find  for 
himself  some  new  occupation.  The  invention  of 
labor-saving  machinery  enabled  him  to  employ  his 
powers  in  the  organization  of  industry.  One  by 
one  he  robbed  the  home  of  its  occupations  and 
organized  them  into  his  great  out-family  system. 
First  the  spinning-wheel  disappeared,  then  the 
brewing-vat,  then  the  soap-boiler,  then  the  candle- 
mold,  then  the  mangel,  and  at  last  the  oven;  but 
worst  of  all  he  robbed  the  woman  in  her  home  of 
the  needle.  The  middle-class  woman  was  the  one 
upon  whom  this  change  had  the  most  blighting  ef- 


144       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

feet.  She  was  able  to  employ  domestics  to  do  the 
menial  work  of  the  house,  to  make  the  beds,  to 
sweep  the  rooms,  and  to  cook  what  little  food  there 
was  left  to  cook  in  the  house.  When  this  middle- 
class  woman  woke  up  in  the  morning  she  was  at 
a  loss  for  something  to  do. 

This  change  in  methods  of  business  which  took 
place  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
whereby  there  was  a  separation  of  the  work  of 
production  and  consumption,  when  the  living  was 
earned  outside  the  house  and  the  spending  was 
done  in  and  from  the  house,  was  thus  most  dis- 
astrous to  the  woman.  She  was  by  means  of  that 
method  reduced  from  the  rank  of  a  business  part- 
ner to  a  menial.  She  no  longer  worked  with  her 
husband,  she  only  worked  for  him.  She  did  not 
share  with  him  in  the  oversight  of  his  affairs,  she 
was  not  his  partner,  she  was  his  housekeeper.  He 
and  she  had  little  to  do  with  each  other  during  the 
hours  of  daylight.  He  left  the  house  as  soon  as 
he  had  eaten  his  breakfast,  and  did  not  return  until 
it  was  time  for  dinner.  His  wife  was  not  at  all 
familiar  with  his  work,  and  her  ignorance  in  that 
respect  tended  further  to  degrade  her  in  his  esteem. 
The  man's  business  was  of  vast  importance;  the 
woman's  work  of  little  or  no  value ;  he  had  a  definite 
result  to  show,  so  much  money  earned.  While  she 
worked  all  day  at  a  round  of  menial  tasks,  cooking, 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        145 

washing  dishes,  making  beds,  sweeping  floors,  and 
when  evening  came  the  family  wealth  had  not  been 
increased  but  decreased.  Even  if  she  did  not  do 
these  tasks  herself,  she  superintended  the  servants 
of  the  house  and  these  also  were  an  expense.  This 
relation  of  the  woman  to  the  man  caused  friction 
between  them  and  placed  the  woman  in  a  humili- 
ating condition.  She  had  continually  to  account 
for  all  that  she  spent  and  was  constantly  called  in 
question  for  her  expenditure. 

The  contempt  of  the  man  for  the  woman's  work 
has  become  proverbial  and  is  one  of  the  irritating 
causes  that  has  brought  about  the  breach  in  do- 
mestic life.  As  the  man  held  the  purse,  he  was 
naturally  the  ruler  and  the  woman  lived  in  con- 
stant fear  of  his  financial  censure. 

Not  only  did  the  woman  lose  her  place  in  the 
business  world  of  the  man  by  this  change  of  method, 
but  she  almost  forfeited  his  companionship.  Dur- 
ing all  the  hours  of  daylight  these  two  were  sepa- 
rated. They  onlj  came  together  in  the  night.  The 
woman  no  longer  shared  in  the  responsibilities  of 
the  family  business,  she  was  only  the  companion 
at  bed  and  board.  These  two  were  not  together 
enough  in  the  daylight,  they  were  too  much  to- 
gether in  the  dark.  The  woman  was  more  and 
more  relegated  to  the  work  of  ministering  to  the 
pleasure  of  her  man.     For  many  women,  indeed, 


146      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

if  not  for  all,  the  necessity  of  sharing  the  room  with 
the  man  continually,  is  irksome  and  in  many  in- 
stances degrading.  Economically  the  woman  was 
now  simply  the  servant  of  the  man.  Sexually  she 
was  his  mistress  and  his  concubine  as  well  as  his 
wife. 

But  these  women  had  the  blood  of  the  English- 
men in  their  veins.  They  were  the  daughters  of 
the  vikings  and  the  freebooters  who  only  a  few 
hundred  years  ago  had  overrun  Europe  and  estab- 
lished themselves  as  the  lords  of  the  Western 
World.  Their  great-grandmothers  had  fought  in 
the  battles  by  which  the  sovereignty  of  the  race 
had  been  won.  The  blood  in  the  veins  of  these 
women  began  not  only  to  send  the  blush  of  shame 
to  the  cheek  but  to  boil  with  indignation  in  the 
heart  at  finding  themselves  reduced  to  the  position 
of  the  upper  servant  in  the  house  of  the  man  and 
the  mere  ministrant  to  his  nightly  pleasure.  And 
by  a  desperate  effort  the  more  adventuresome  of 
this  subjected  class  threw  off  some  of  the  restraints 
of  their  servitude.  The  movement  for  the  emanci- 
pation of  woman  is  a  rebellion  against  parasitism. 
Prior  to  this  movement  the  woman  was  an  intel- 
lectual, a  spiritual,  and  a  physical  parasite.  She 
was  expected  to  think  as  the  man  thought,  to  be- 
lieve as  the  man  believed,  and  to  eat  the  bread 
which  came  to  her  from  the  hand  of  the  man.     It 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        147 

is  true  that  this  subjection  was  never  complete. 
The  woman  frequently  was  the  gray  mare  and  her 
stronger  mind  dominated  the  mind  of  her  man,  but 
the  system  under  which  she  lived  condemned  this, 
and  the  gray  mare  was  a  subject  of  derision  and 
her  mate  of  contempt. 

The  struggle  for  emancipation  originated  in  this 
middle  class.  Susan  B.  Anthony,  when  she  rose 
up  to  speak  in  an  assembly  composed  of  men  and 
women  struck  the  first  blow  in  America  at. female 
parasitism.  She  asserted  the  right  to  think  for 
herself  and  to  express  her  thought  publicly.  The 
surprise  with  which  this  maiden  effort  was  received 
is  an  evidence  of  how  completely  the  woman  was 
in  parasitic  relation  to  the  man. 

From  that  day  to  this,  the  revolt  of  woman 
against  the  cramping  and  corrupting  conditions  of 
her  life  has  increased  in  magnitude  and  violence 
until  to-day  it  is  the  most  important,  significant, 
and  the  most  dangerous  of  all  the  revolutionary 
forces  that  are  threatening  the  present  order.  That 
simpering  creature,  who  is  pictured  in  the  Godey's 
Lady's  Book,  who  has  been  the  heroine  of  innumer- 
able novels,  has  cast  off  her  ladyhood  and  stands 
before  the  world  a  woman.  She  is  no  longer 
ashamed  of  herself  or  afraid  of  her  body.  She  has 
thrown  the  side-saddle  into  the  discard  and  rides 
astride;  she  is  ready  for  any  enterprise,  from  the 


148      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

prize  fight  to  the  climbing  a  mountain;  she  devel- 
ops her  muscles  more  than  her  sentiments;  she  is 
contending  for  her  rights  not  only  by  persuasion 
but  by  violence ;  she  is  asserting  for  herself  the  in- 
alienable right  of  the  Englishman  to  "  'eave  arf  a 
brick."  The  male  world  stands  aghast  at  this 
spectacle.  He  cries  in  alarm  that  this  woman  has 
lost  her  womanhood;  he  has  persuaded  himself  in 
the  belief  that  it  has  always  been  the  lot  of  the 
woman  to  walk  in  the  shadow  of  the  man,  to  shelter 
herself  under  his  protection  and  to  receive  from 
him  the  guidance  in  life,  and  he  is  quite  convinced 
that  fighting  is  his  exclusive  province.  He  is  un- 
aware of  the  fact  that  the  woman  has  fighting  blood 
in  her,  as  well  as  the  man;  and  when  that  blood 
is  excited  she  is  more  fatal  than  the  male  in  her 
destructive  powers.  The  French  found  that  out 
in  the  great  revolution;  at  every  period  in  the 
world's  history,  where  the  woman  has  risen  she 
has  accomplished  a  work  of  destruction  that  might 
well  excite  the  envy  of  man. 

It  is  idle  to  lay  to  Mrs.  Pankhurst  this  great 
movement  which  has  become  militant  in  England. 
Mrs.  Pankhurst  may  be  the  leader  of  the  movement 
but  she  is  not  the  movement.  It  created  her,  she 
did  not  bring  it  into  existence.  It  was  the  pres- 
sure of  the  parasitic  class  against  their  fate  that 
originated  this  movement  and  it  is  the  determina- 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        149 

tion  of  that  class  to  escape  from  the  deadly  evil  that 
threatens  them,  that  will  give  to  that  movement 
increased  momentum  until  the  full  rights  of  the 
woman  are  recognized  and  she  takes  her  place  as 
the  physical,  the  social,  and  political  equal  of  the 
man.  She  is  no  longer  content  to  be  either  his 
housekeeper,  his  mistress,  or  his  concubine.  She 
demands  that  when  she  gives  pleasure  she  shall 
receive  pleasure.  From  this  time  forward,  the 
woman  will  insist  upon  ceasing  to  be  a  chattel  and 
will  claim  ownership  of  herself.  Only  under  dire 
pressure  will  she  ever  again  sell  her  sex-power  for 
money,  either  in  marriage  or  out  of  it. 

The  militant  suffragette  movement  is  simply  the 
natural  reaction  of  the  woman  against  her  age- 
long suppression.  She  is  avenging  herself  and  her 
sex  of  the  injuries,  the  insolences,  the  degradations 
which  the  male  has  heaped  upon  her  during  these 
many  centuries.  Dramatic  expression  has  been 
given  this  revolt  of  the  woman  in  Ibsen's  Doll's 
House,  and  literary  exposition  in  Olive  Schreiner's 
Woman  and  Labor.  By  the  voice  of  the  South 
African  woman,  the  whole  womanhood  of  the  West- 
ern World  has  uttered  the  cry :  "  Give  us  labor, 
or  give  us  death."  It  is  not  liberty  that  women 
crave,  it  is  labor.  It  is  not  pleasure  that  they 
desire,  it  is  noble  duty.  They  are  fighting  for  the 
chance  to  live;  to  have  the  free  play  of  all  their 


150       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

wonderful  powers ;  the  right  to  walk,  to  run,  to  leap, 
to  climb ;  the  right  to  ride,  to  row,  to  sail  the  seas ; 
the  right  to  think,  to  speak,  to  write, —  and,  most 
of  all,  the  right  to  love.  Women  will  no  longer 
submit  to  be  chattels,  to  be  bought  and  sold  in  the 
market. 

This  is  no  longer  a  man's  world.  It  is  rapidly 
becoming  a  woman's  world  and  the  men  must  look 
to  it  lest  they  be  relegated  to  that  subordinate  posi- 
tion which  has  been  so  long  occupied  by  the  woman. 
The  invention  of  labor-saving  machinery,  the  cen- 
tering of  activity  in  industry,  the  failure  of  the 
chase,  the  decline  of  militarism  are  all  signs  of  a 
coming  change  in  which  the  masculine  powers  will 
be  of  less  and  less  importance  and  the  powers  of 
the  woman  be  in  increasing  demand.  Even  to-day, 
the  woman  has  an  equal  if  not  a  better  chance  for 
employment  than  the  man.  Every  more  delicate 
machine  gives  her  a  new  opportunity.  The  tele- 
phone demands  the  girls.  A  boy  is  an  impossi- 
bility in  that  occupation.  The  great  factories  are 
now  so  equipped  that  they  have  little  or  no  use 
for  mere  muscular  strength.  All  they  require  is 
the  oversight  of  an  intelligence  that  is  quick  and 
of  a  hand  that  is  deft,  and  this  is  the  woman-in- 
telligence and  the  woman-hand.  The  man,  because 
he  has  been  abroad,  has  the  wider  vision,  the 
greater  mastery  of  general  principles.    The  woman, 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        151 

because  she  has  been  confined,  has  the  greater 
grasp  of  detail;  and  as  modern  business  is  on 
the  whole  largely  a  matter  of  detail,  it  calls  for  the 
woman  more  than  for  the  man.  The  man  is  the 
organizer,  but  when  the  organization  is  once  ac- 
complished, then  the  woman  is  the  better  adminis- 
trator ;  and  as  we  must  sooner  or  later  come  to  the 
end  of  possible  organization  in  business,  when 
henceforth  administration  only  will  be  required, 
then  by  the  law  of  efficiency  the  woman  will  drive 
the  man  out  of  business.  Even  on  the  battlefield 
the  woman  to-day  can  do  the  work  as  well  if  not 
better  than  the  man.  The  modern  instruments  of 
death  lend  themselves  easily  to  her  gentle  hand. 
She  has  but  to  move  the  lever  of  a  machine  and 
she  will  mow  down  men  a  mile  or  two  away  as  if 
they  were  grass  under  a  scythe;  and  as  war  has 
become  an  industry,  in  which  woman's  labor  is 
cheaper  than  man's,  we  must  expect  at  no  distant 
time  to  find  all  armies  equipped  with  a  corps  of 
women  to  do  this  more  delicate  work;  for  the 
woman  will  not  refuse  the  task.  Economic  forces 
have  already  driven  her  from  the  home  into  the 
factory  and  they  can  as  easily  drive  her  to  the  field 
of  battle. 

It  would  not  be  strange  if  the  present  revolution- 
ary movement  were  to  come  full  circle  and  man 
find   himself   a   parasite   upon   the   labor   of   the 


152      THE  EISE  OF  THE  TORKING-CLASS 

woman,  even  as  for  so  long  a  time  the  middle-class 
woman  has  been  more  or  less  a  parasite  upon  the 
labor  of  the  man.  This  condition  is  already  so 
common  that  men  are  living  upon  the  earnings  of 
women  and  are  not  ashamed.  That  vilest  form  of 
manhood,  the  cadet,  does  not  hesitate  to  take  from 
the  woman  of  the  street  her  earnings  and  spend 
them  upon  himself.  And  in  ranks  above  his,  there 
are  men  innumerable  who  are  content  to  live  with- 
out working  so  long  as  they  can  find  women  to 
work  for  them.  The  man  who  marries  money  and 
lives  upon  the  money  that  he  marries,  has  already 
entered  upon  a  life  of  parasitism.  And  that  seems 
to  be  the  one  ambition  of  the  upper  middle-class 
men  and  the  lower  gentry  of  the  present  day.  Sci- 
ons of  the  British  nobility  marry  American  heir- 
esses and  subsist  without  shame  upon  the  fortunes 
that  have  been  earned  by  the  fathers  of  these 
women.  Only  by  being  received  into  full  partner- 
ship, or  by  being  made  man's  equal  in  every  de- 
partment of  life,  can  the  woman  escape  from  par- 
asitism,—  or  the  man  be  saved  from  it.  These 
facts  are  sufficient  to  explain  the  movements  for 
woman's  rights  and  the  militant  attitude  of  the 
stronger  element  of  that  movement.  We  do  not 
need  to  seek  for  it  in  any  change  in  the  woman's  na- 
ture. In  all  great  races  the  woman  has  been  the 
fellow-worker   with  the  man,   and   whenever   she 


THE  KEVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        153 

loses  her  place  at  bis  side,  then  the  loss  is  not  only 
hers  but  his.  Wherever  women  are  secluded  and 
are  looked  upon  as  the  mere  instruments  of  man's 
pleasure,  the  shadows  of  man's  existence,  there  you 
find  a  base  and  a  debasing  people.  The  Turk  has 
failed  in  Europe  and  the  Hindoo  in  India,  largely 
because  their  women  have  been  parasites.  We  are 
then  to  look  with  admiration  upon  even  the  most 
outrageous  efforts  which  are  made  by  the  women 
of  our  race  to  deliver  themselves  from  so  degrading 
and  so  disastrous  a  condition. 

We  can  now  readily  understand  why  it  is  that  the 
movement  for  the  rights  of  women  has  not  affected 
to  any  great  degree  the  nobility  of  England  or  the 
extremely  rich  class  in  America.  With  an  excep- 
tion here  and  there,  these  are  all  anti-suffragists 
and  are  bitterly  opposed  to  any  change  in  their 
political  or  social  status.  The  reason  for  this  is 
plain.  The  lives  of  these  women  are  so  wholly  par- 
asitic; parasitism  has  been  their  condition  for  so 
long  a  period,  that  they  have  become  unconscious 
of  it ;  they  do  not  look  upon  it  as  a  disgrace  but  as  a 
glory.  In  their  station  of  life,  the  great  duty  of 
the  woman  is  not  to  produce,  but  to  consume,  and 
these  women  of  the  upper  class  have  organized 
consumption  on  so  grand  a  scale  that  they  find  in  it 
the  full  satisfaction  of  their  lives.  They  have  been 
taught  that  upon  their  consumption  depends  the 


154       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

prosperity  of  the  rest  of  the  world.  Because  they 
live  in  a  dozen  or  more  houses,  because  they  are 
waited  upon  by  a  retinue  of  servants,  because  sea 
and  land  are  traversed  to  find  delicacies  for  their 
table,  because  they  are  dressed  in  purple  and  fine 
linen  and  fare  sumptuously  every  day,  therefore 
the  rest  of  mankind  is  able  to  find  employment  and 
so  to  earn  a  living.  This  philosophy  of  the  leisure 
class,  by  which  it  is  persuaded  that  without  its 
leisure  no  work  would  ever  be  done,  is  one  of  those 
queer  tricks  of  human  thinking  that  have  done  so 
much  to  lead  the  world  astray.  These  women  do 
nothing  for  themselves,  they  do  not  so  much  as  put 
on  their  own  clothing  or  take  care  of  their  own 
hair,  they  hardly  bathe  their  own  bodies.  Maids 
without  limit  wait  upon  them.  Men  run  their 
slightest  errand.  They  are  picked  up  and  carried 
about  and  many  of  them  have  lost  all  sense  of  in- 
dependence. Among  the  English  the  outdoor 
sports  have  saved  this  class  from  the  utter  degra- 
dation which  is  the  natural  result  of  their  way  of 
living ;  and  because  the  American  imitates  the  Eng- 
lish in  these  things,  the  American  likewise  has 
been  delivered  from  the  uttermost  consequences  of 
her  folly. 

But  parasitism  is  a  disease  of  society  that  in  the 
end  is  fatal.  No  parasitic  class  can  long  endure. 
And  the  upper  class  in  England  and  their  imita- 


THE  KEVOLT  OF  THE  PAEASITES        155 

tors  in  America  are  already  under  sentence  of 
death.  The  great  landed  aristocracy  of  England 
fell  almost  without  resistance  before  the  onslaught 
of  a  little  Welsh  attorney,  backed  as  he  was  by 
thirty  working-men  in  the  House  of  Parliament. 
Future  generations  will  wonder  how  it  came  to 
pass  that  this  great  order  of  men  who  had  for  so 
many  generations  ruled  over  the  realm  of  England 
and  established  the  imperial  power  of  England  in 
the  far  countries  of  the  world  succumbed  so  easily 
to  the  attack  of  its  enemy.  The  passing  of  the  Bill 
depriving  the  House  of  Lords  of  the  absolute  veto 
is  the  most  significant  event  in  present-day  his- 
tory. With  the  passage  of  that  Bill  a  power  ante- 
dating the  Conquest  ceased  to  be.  A  revolution 
was  accomplished  in  English  government  and  a  new 
era  of  political  existence  inaugurated.  The  rea- 
son for  this  is  that  the  nobility  of  England  had 
ceased  to  perform  any  necessary  or  useful  tasks. 
Their  women  had  become  wholly  parasitic,  the 
fiber  was  eaten  out  of  them,  they  had  lost  their 
vigor  and  so  they  perished.  They  still  have  the 
name  of  living,  but  with  the  outworn  nobilities  of 
France,  of  Italy,  of  Spain,  and  the  declining  no- 
bilities of  German}7,  they  will  soon  be  nothing  other 
than  an  ornament,  an  historical  survival,  and  will 
sink  into  the  lassitude  of  utter  parasitism  and  so 
gradually  die  out  of  existence.     In  America  the 


156      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

idle  rich,  are  already  doomed.  They  have  no  root 
in  the  past  to  give  them  any  lengthened  life.  They 
have  never  added  any  value  to  the  wealth  of  the 
community.  They  have  been  simply  consumers 
and  as  consumers  they  have  wasted  the  substance 
of  the  nation;  they  have  corrupted  themselves  and 
have  enfeebled  society.  The  second  generation  of 
the  rich  in  America  are  for  the  most  part  mere 
cumberers  of  the  ground.  Many  of  them  are  vile, 
most  of  them  are  useless,  and  all  of  them  are  to-day 
under  the  shadow  of  doom.  Of  course,  there  are 
among  the  wealthy  of  our  nation  many  men  of 
sterling  character,  of  fine  abilities,  men  who  would 
adorn  any  station  in  life,  but  it  is  becoming  more 
and  more  difficult  for  these  men  to  exert  the  influ- 
ence which  ought  to  be  theirs,  or  to  give  full  ex- 
pression to  the  life  that  is  in  them.  In  these  days 
of  rising  democracy,  the  noble  and  the  rich,  are  not 
advantaged,  they  are  handicapped  by  their  nobility 
and  their  riches.  They  are  almost  forced  down 
into  a  life  of  uselessness,  of  ennui,  and  of  moral  de- 
cay. The  women  of  this  class  suffer  more  than 
the  men.  They  lose  all  capacity  to  do  a  woman's 
work  in  the  world.  If  they  bear  a  child  or  two, 
they  thereafter  refuse  the  office  of  maternity,  and 
their  children  are  put  away  at  once  to  nurse ;  these 
children  are  in  the  keeping  of  governesses  and  tu- 
tors, the  mother  simply  performs  the  physical  func- 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        157 

tion  of  motherhood  and  does  all  the  rest  of  her 
work  by  deputy.  There  are,  it  is  true,  exceptions 
to  this,  but  such  is  the  rule.  Nor  will  these  women 
consent  to  be  the  ministers  of  the  pleasures  of  their 
men.  They  are  perfectly  content  that  their  men 
should  seek  satisfaction  elsewhere  if  they  are  al- 
lowed like  liberties.  These  women  have  no  time 
to  give  to  such  matters  as  occupy  the  minds  of 
those  who  are  engaged  in  the  great  effort  to  secure 
for  their  sex  equal  political,  social,  and  economic 
rights.  They  are  too  busy  eating,  drinking,  danc- 
ing, yachting,  flirting,  to  have  any  time  to  spare 
for  more  serious  matters.  In  England,  up  to  this 
time,  they  have  mixed  more  or  less  in  politics,  but 
with  the  passing  of  the  Lords  this  too  will  go,  and 
the  women  will  then  be  simply  creatures  of  pleas- 
ure, contributing  nothing  worth  while  to  the  com- 
mon good,  and  so  will  perish  in  their  parasitism 
as  the  similar  women  have  perished  in  the  ages  that 
are  gone. 

The  women  of  the  working-class  are  not  found 
in  the  movement  for  equal  rights, —  for  a  far  dif- 
ferent reason.  These  women  have  not  yet  been 
forced  into  the  degradation  of  parasitism.  If  they 
are  the  wives  of  working-men,  they  must  work 
early  and  late  to  keep  their  men  in  working  condi- 
tion. They  are  the  stokers  of  the  labor  boilers. 
They  make  ready  the  fuel  that  keeps  the  machine 


158      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

a-going.  And  not  only  this,  but  by  and  through 
them  the  labor  force  of  the  world  is  replenished 
and  maintained.  Unless  these  women  gave  them- 
selves to  the  task  of  childbearing,  our  present  civ- 
ilization would  perish  for  lack  of  industrial  en- 
ergy. Nature  demands  of  them  that  they  shall 
bring  into  the  world  many  children.  In  their  class 
infant  mortality  is  great,  and  hence  a  high  birth- 
rate is  required.  We  sometimes  marvel  that  the 
women  of  the  working-class  are  so  fruitful.  We 
speak  of  their  fertility  with  contempt  and  we  even 
abhor  it.  They  seem  to  breed  like  maggots;  and 
so  they  do  and  for  the  same  reason;  the  maggot's 
life  is  short  and  uncertain  and  if  the  maggot  did 
not  multiply  exceedingly,  there  would  be  no  mag- 
gots. Because  of  this,  the  woman  of  the  working- 
class  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  any  movement  for 
her  betterment.  While  present  conditions  endure, 
this  woman  has  placed  upon  her  the  duty  of  keep- 
ing replenished  the  forces  of  labor.  Her  children 
that  survive  are  the  labor  force  of  the  coming  gen- 
eration, and  as  long  as  this  woman  is  kept  in  her 
present  estate,  so  long  she  will  be  indifferent  to 
that  disturbance  which  is  now  agitating  the  mid- 
dle class.  In  her  own  phraseology,  she  "  ain't  got 
no  time  for  sich  nonsense."  Her  man  and  her 
babies  give  her  enough  to  do  and  she  is  satisfied. 
The  out-family  working-woman  is  aligning  her- 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  PARASITES        159 

self  with  those  who  are  agitating  for  the  equal 
rights  of  women.  She  has  found  out  that  her  pres- 
ent unfranchised  condition  prevents  her  from  se- 
curing for  herself  anything  like  what  she  ought  to 
have  for  the  work  which  she  does  for  the  world. 
She  is  exploited  by  the  laws  which  men  have  made 
in  their  own  interests.  She  is  held  back  because 
she  has  no  voice  or  vote  in  matters  legislative. 
Men  ignore  her  on  account  of  her  powerlessness. 
Coming  to  a  knowledge  of  this,  she  is  now  march- 
ing in  the  streets,  speaking  in  the  halls,  and  using 
every  means  of  agitation  lawful  and  unlawful,  to 
deliver  herself  from  the  subjection  under  which 
she  labors.  It  is  the  alliance  of  the  out-family 
working-woman  with  the  middle-class  woman  in 
the  family  that  is  giving  its  tremendous  force  to  the 
present  movement  for  woman's  rights.  Parasitism 
and  industrial  slavery  are  combining  to  overthrow 
the  present  system  and  to  establish  a  new  world 
in  which  men  and  women  shall  be  upon  the  same 
plane,  each  owning  himself  or  herself  and  working 
each  with  the  other  for  mutual  benefit,  neither  sub- 
ject to  the  other,  but  combining  to  form  a  partner- 
ship in  which  all  the  forces  of  life,  male  and 
female,  freed  from  unnatural  conventions  and  re- 
straints, shall  put  forth  their  utmost  energy  to 
build  a  human  nature  acceptable  to  the  gods,  and 
create  a  world  in  which  that  human  nature  can 


160      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

live  decently,  joyously,  lovingly.  The  revolt  of  the 
parasites  is  a  good  sign  of  the  times.  If  they  die 
in  their  effort,  they  will  still  be  the  saviors  of  the 
race. 

It  is  within  the  range  of  probability  that  Em- 
meline  Pankhurst,  the  leader  of  this  movement, 
may,  by  future  historians,  be  reckoned  with  Pym 
and  Hampden  as  having  enlarged  the  liberties  of 
the  people,  and  her  monument  find  a  place  in  West- 
minster Abbey. 


VII 

THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS 

THE  working-class  in  the  modern  industrial 
world  is  in  a  state  of  chronic  revolt.  From 
the  very  beginning  of  the  present  system  there  has 
been  this  spirit  of  discontent  in  the  heart  of  the 
worker.  At  present  this  revolt  is  assuming  the 
proportions  of  a  revolution.  Hardly  a  day  passes 
that  we  are  not  compelled  to  read  of  some  outbreak 
of  hostility  in  the  fields  of  industry.  The  strike 
is  an  hourly  occurrence.  The  worker  is  now  mak- 
ing use  of  the  forces  of  the  natural  world  in  his 
warfare.  He  is  using  dynamite  and  other  violent 
means  to  destroy  the  very  tools  that  employ  him. 
So  widespread  is  this  spirit  of  disorder  that  it  is 
threatening  the  stability  of  all  our  institutions. 
Not  only  is  the  factory  in  danger,  but  the  State 
and  the  Church  are  likewise  in  peril.  There  is  a 
fierce  hatred  in  the  hearts  of  the  working-men 
against  everything  that  has  come  down  from  the 
past.  Whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  they  think  and 
feel  that  these  institutions,  being  a  creation  of  the 
upper  classes,  are  necessarily  hostile  to  their  wel- 

161 


162      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

fare.  It  is  quite  impossible  that  the  discontent 
which  now  prevails  should  not  increase  and  in  the 
end  make  revolutionary  changes  in  the  present  or- 
der of  society. 

The  worker  is  not  in  rebellion  against  work. 
He  is  rebelling  against  his  task  and  there  is  a  vast 
difference  between  a  task  and  a  work.  Work  is 
the  delight  of  men.  Nature  has  associated  work 
and  pleasure.  In  all  the  animal  world,  if  not  also 
in  the  vegetable,  it  has  made  life  depend  upon  work. 
Every  creature  has  to  put  forth  exertion  in  order 
to  secure  its  food-supply,  and  it  is  by  means  of  this 
exertion  that  the  animal  organization  is  developed 
and  kept  in  health  and  happiness.  All  nature  is 
full  of  the  joy  of  work.  You  hear  the  birds  chirp- 
ing in  their  nests  as  they  preen  their  wings  in  the 
early  morning  to  fly  abroad  in  search  of  the  morn- 
ing meal.  The  dog  loves  the  chase  with  a  mad 
passion.  He  is  beside  himself  with  joy  when  he 
sees  the  rabbit  and  runs  after  it.  There  is  noth- 
ing more  placid,  more  pleasurable,  than  the  soul 
of  a  cow  as  she  grazes  in  the  field  and  then  lies 
down  to  chew  her  cud  in  quiet  content.  If  you 
take  away  from  these  creatures  the  necessity  of 
work,  you  deprive  them  of  life.  Our  cattle  are 
dying  by  the  millions  in  our  barns,  because  we  have 
shut  them  up  and  feed  them  from  the  silo.  And 
man  is  nothing  other  than  an  animal.     He  must 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS  163 

work  to  live,  as  well  as  live  to  work.  If  he  does 
not  work  then  he  very  soon  ceases  to  be.  If  he 
cannot  find  work  he  must  make  work.  To  be  truly 
healthy  he  must  exercise  all  the  organs  of  his  na- 
ture; his  hands,  his  feet,  his  heart,  and  his  head 
must  all  be  busy  if  the  man  is  to  develop  naturally 
and  wholesomely. 

True  work  in  order  to  be  enjoyed  must  be  in- 
teresting. It  must  so  occupy  the  attention  and 
employ  the  faculties  of  the  worker  that  he  will  find 
his  delight  in  the  work  itself.  Nature  has  so  ar- 
ranged it  that  all  natural,  necessary  work  is  more 
or  less  interesting.  When  man  had  to  get  his  liv- 
ing by  hunting  and  fishing  he  found  excitement  and 
pleasure  in  his  occupation.  He  was  out  under  the 
open  sky,  he  was  roaming  from  place  to  place,  he 
was  always  anticipating  a  good  catch  or  a  good 
find.  When  he  had  domesticated  the  animals 
these  increased  immensely  the  range  of  his  wTork 
and  consequently  of  his  pleasure.  The  herdsman 
found  delight  in  the  occupation  of  leading  or  driv- 
ing his  flocks  or  herds  from  pasture  to  pasture; 
and  while  they  were  feeding  he  could  please  his 
soul  in  all  the  goings-on  of  the  world  round  about 
him.  The  birds  made  music  for  him,  there  was  a 
drama  enacting  in  the  heavens  for  his  delectation, 
the  winds  and  the  waters  were  ministering  to  his 
sense  of  sound;  his  occupation  did  not  hinder,  it 


164      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

helped,  the  development  of  all  his  higher  faculties. 
The  pastoral  life  has  given  to  the  world  its  great- 
est poetry.  There  the  highest  and  holiest  feelings 
were  developed;  the  relation  of  the  shepherd  to 
the  sheep  became  the  type  of  the  relation  of  the  man 
to  his  God. 

With  the  coming  of  agriculture  as  the  principal 
source  of  the  food-supply  this  same  law  of  associat- 
ing work  with  pleasure  continues,  but  not  with  the 
same  force.  When  man  became  a  plowman,  then 
work  among  humanity  began  to  change  into  a  task. 
But  this  change  did  not  greatly  affect  the  true  re- 
lation of  the  man  to  his  work.  That  work  was  in- 
tensely interesting.  It  was  done  in  the  open.  It 
carried  on  into  the  new  era  the  associations  of  the 
woods  and  the  fields.  Seed-time  and  harvest  were 
celebrated  with  festivities.  Man's  religion  and 
man's  work  were  one  and  the  same.  His  gods  were 
the  gods  of  the  field,  of  the  waters,  and  of  the  skies. 
During  all  the  period  in  which  agriculture  was  the 
main  source  of  wealth  there  was  no  great  quarrel 
of  man  with  his  work;  and  when  such  discontent 
did  arise,  it  was  because  of  another  reason  than  the 
work  itself.  The  coming  of  handicraft,  as  a  means 
of  earning  a  living,  also  brought  with  it  added 
pleasure  to  humanity.  The  handicraftsman  wTas 
an  artist  in  embryo.  He  could  see  his  work  grow- 
ing under  his  hand  and  his  chief  delight  was  in  that 


THE  EEVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS  165 

work  itself.  If  be  were  hanging  out  at  risk  carv- 
ing a  flower  upon  the  lintel  of  the  door  of  some 
cathedral  it  was  the  growing  flower  that  he  loved. 
He  did  not  think  at  all  of  the  wage  which  he  was 
to  receive  for  carving.  The  carving  itself  was  his 
delight.  As  we  go  into  the  great  buildings  of  Eu- 
rope, in  which  there  still  survive  the  results  of  the 
handicraftsmen  of  the  fourteenth  and  the  fifteenth 
centuries,  we  see  that  these  workers  are  not  dead; 
they  are  alive  in  their  work.  As  we  look  at  what 
they  have  done  we  can  almost  see  the  joy  that  went 
into  every  stroke  of  the  hammer  and  every  mark 
of  the  chisel.  These  men  ate  black  bread  and 
drank  sour  beer  contentedly,  because  their  life  was 
not  centered  in  their  bread  and  their  beer,  but  in 
the  work  which  their  hands  found  to  do.  Before 
and  above  all  things  then,  work  to  be  life-giving 
must  be  interesting  and  pleasant. 

If  a  man  is  to  find  any  satisfaction  in  what  he 
does,  it  must  not  only  be  thus  interesting  and  de- 
lightful, but  it  must  also  be  useful  in  the  highest 
sense  of  that  word.  A  living  work  must  minister 
to  life.  When  a  man  goes  forth  to  his  work  it 
must  be  with  the  expectation  that  when  he  finishes 
that  work  he  shall  have  accomplished  somewhat 
worth  while.  He  must  add,  if  his  work  is  to  sat- 
isfy his  soul,  to  the  real  wealth  of  the  world.  He 
must  make  the  world  an  easier,  a  better,  a  more 


166       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

delightful  place  to  live  in.  When  he  sows  his  seed 
he  looks  forward  to  the  harvest,  and  when  he  gath- 
ers in  the  harvest  it  is  that  he  may  produce  the 
bread  that  strengthens  man's  heart  and  the  wine 
that  makes  glad  the  heart  of  man.  When  he  cuts 
down  a  tree  he  knows  that  the  timber  of  that  tree 
can  be  made  into  a  house  to  shelter  man  from  the 
heat  and  the  cold;  and  when  the  house  is  builded, 
with  the  residue  of  the  wood  he  can  kindle  the  fire 
to  make  cheerful  the  hearth  and  upon  the  ashes 
of  the  fire  he  can  bake  his  bread.  And  the  more 
useful  the  work  the  more  satisfactory  it  is  to  the 
worker.  If  a  vagrant  comes  and  asks  for  work 
and  you  appoint  him  to  the  task  of  carrying  stones 
from  one  place  to  another,  and  then  after  he  car- 
ries them  tell  him  to  carry  them  back  again,  he 
will  rebel.  The  uselessness  of  the  task  disgusts 
him.  When  he  asks  for  work  he  wants  work,  not 
busy  idleness.  Not  until  a  man  has  become  so 
parasitic  that  he  has  lost  the  sense  of  real  work, 
can  he  employ  himself  in  that  which  ends  in  noth- 
ing. Digging  potatoes  is  interesting  because  po- 
tatoes mean  life.  To  the  real  worker  playing  golf 
is  without  interest  because  it  means  simply  get- 
ting a  little  ball  into  a  hole.  One  of  the  evidences 
of  parasitism  among  the  upper  classes  of  our  social 
order  is  that  they  delight  in  exercise  for  the  sake 
of  exercise  and  do  not  employ  their  physical  and 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS         167 

intellectual  powers  for  the  purpose  of  producing 
that  which  in  itself  is  of  value. 

It  is  also  necessary  that  work,  if  it  is  to  be  of 
use  to  the  worker,  shall  not  pass  beyond  the  limit 
of  work  into  the  region  of  labor.  Work  must  em- 
ploy the  energies  of  men,  but  it  must  not  exhaust 
them.  Just  so  soon  as  work  becomes  irksome,  just 
so  soon  it  becomes  destructive.  It  is  one  thing  to 
be  pleasantly  tired,  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  be 
painfully  tired.  If  a  man  works  up  to  and  beyond 
the  limit  of  his  energy,  then  that  energy,  being 
exhausted,  is  not  easily  replenished.  So  careful 
is  nature  of  this  law  that  she  has  provided  rest 
after  work  as  a  necessity  throughout  all  her  ani- 
mal creation.  So  many  hours  to  put  forth  energy, 
so  many  hours  to  draw  in  energy.  Let  man  violate 
this  law  and  he  suffers  the  consequence.  His  de- 
pleted energies  no  longer  respond  to  the  call  of  his 
will,  the  forces  of  his  life  are  weakened,  and  he 
passes  into  a  state  of  exhaustion  that  ends  in  death. 
In  our  modern  world  the  gospel  of  work  has  been 
preached  until  it  has  taken  possession  of  the  mind 
and  made  the  indulgence  in  leisure  a  sin.  No  one 
to-day  dares  to  loaf  and  make  the  acquaintance  of 
his  own  soul.  No  one  presumes  to  idle  and  by  idle- 
ness to  come  into  contact  with  the  great  energies 
that  play  in  the  idle  world  of  nature.  In  nature 
we   find   work   transformed  into   play.     The   sun 


168       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

comes  forth  as  a  bridegroom  out  of  his  chamber 
and  rejoices  as  a  giant  to  run  his  course.  The 
clouds  float  idly  in  the  sky.  The  birds  do  nothing 
but  hop  from  branch  to  branch.  All  true  work  is 
play.  All  splendid  occupation  is  magnificent  idle- 
ness. Poetry  is  the  employment  of  the  leisure 
hour. 

There  is  a  fourth  characteristic  of  true  work 
which  is  essential,  if  the  worker  is  to  find  satis- 
faction in  his  work,  and  that  is,  that  the  work  must 
employ  in  due  proportion  all  the  various  faculties 
of  man's  organism.  It  must  not  be  monotonous; 
change  is  of  the  very  essence  of  pleasurable  work. 
The  worker  must  pass  from  task  to  task.  He  must 
employ  his  muscles  in  walking  and  in  handling, 
his  mind  must  be  occupied  in  thinking,  his  eye  in 
seeing,  his  ear  in  hearing.  Unless  he  has  this 
change  of  occupation  he  soon  wearies  of  his  work 
and  with  weariness  comes  disgust  and  with  disgust 
the  end  of  his  work.  No  man  will  long  continue 
contentedly  doing  the  same  thing  over  and  over 
again.  His  very  life  frets  under  such  restraint 
until  by  fretting  he  wears  himself  out. 

There  is  an  additional  element  necessary  if  work 
is  to  play  its  proper  part  in  the  life  of  a  man,  and 
that  is,  that  it  must  be  his  own  work.  He  himself 
must  do  it.  It  must  as  far  as  possible  originate 
with  him.     It  must  be  the  outcome  of  his  own 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS  169 

thought.  He  himself  must  direct  it.  No  matter 
how  humble  that  work  may  be,  nor  how  noble, 
whether  it  be  the  digging  of  a  ditch,  or  the  discov- 
ery of  a  star,  the  man  who  does  it  must  be  able  to 
say  to  himself :  "  This  I  have  done.  It  is  the 
work  of  my  hand,  the  outcome  of  my  thought,  the 
expression  of  my  will " ;  and  just  in  proportion  as 
the  work  and  the  worker  are  one,  so  is  the  work, 
in  itself,  great  and  pleasurable  to  the  worker. 
When  a  man  ceases  to  control  what  he  does  and 
is  altogether  under  the  direction  of  a  will  outside 
himself,  he  becomes  a  machine,  he  ceases  to  be  a 
man.  All  joy  of  working  is  gone  from  him  and  he 
goes  like  a  "  quarry  slave  "  to  his  task.  He  is  no 
longer  a  worker,  he  is  simply  worked. 

If  our  reasoning  is  correct,  true  work  must  be 
pleasurable;  and  in  order  to  be  delightful,  it  must 
be  interesting;  if  it  would  be  interesting,  it  must 
be  useful.  If  the  worker  is  to  find  continued  de- 
light in  his  work,  that  work  must  never  degenerate 
into  a  task,  it  must  always  be  well  within  the  limits 
of  his  endurance,  it  must  never  be  so  great  as  to 
break  either  his  back  or  his  heart;  and  it  must  al- 
ways remain  within  his  own  control.  His  will  must 
be  over  the  work  —  guiding  his  hand  to  accomplish 
it. 

The  discontent  of  the  modern  workman  arises 
from  the  fact  that  all  of  these  laws  governing  work 


170      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

are  violated  by  our  modern  system  of  industry. 
We  have  destroyed  the  possibility  of  work.  Under 
our  system  man  has  ceased  to  be  a  worker.  He 
has  become,  in  some  instances,  a  laborer,  in  others 
an  automaton.  His  work,  instead  of  developing 
his  manhood,  destroys  it.  We  have  separated 
work  altogether  from  the  idea  of  joy.  When  the 
workman  rises  in  the  morning  and  takes  his  din- 
ner-pail in  hand  he  does  so  with  reluctance.  There 
is  no  spring  to  him  as  he  starts  out  from  his  home 
to  his  factory.  If  he  has  not  altogether  lost  the 
soul  of  joy,  he  envies  the  bird  on  the  wing,  as  that 
bird  flies  forth  from  its  nest  to  its  daily  task. 
When  the  factory  door  closes  upon  him,  it  is  as  if 
he  were  a  prisoner  and  not  a  worker.  His  occupa- 
tion has  intervened  between  him  and  all  the  sources 
of  human  joy.  For  him  there  is  no  blue  sky,  nor 
cloud  castle,  nor  shadow  on  the  hills,  nor  music  of 
running  water,  nor  whispering  of  breezes  in  the 
tree-tops.  He  sees  nothing  but  the  stained  and 
ugly  walls  of  his  work-room.  His  ears  are  as- 
saulted with  the  din  and  clangor  of  the  ever  rest- 
less machine.  He  cannot  walk  to  and  fro  and  find 
pleasure  in  walking.  He  is  tied  to  one  place.  No 
one  who  looks  into  the  faces  of  the  working-men 
and  working-women,  as  they  go  to  and  come  from 
their  work,  can  help  being  startled  at  the  joyless- 
ness  of  their  countenances.     They  seem  to  be  as 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS  171 

lost  creatures  in  a  lost  world.  The  old  theological 
doctrine  of  the  fall  of  man  fits  them  precisely ;  they 
have  fallen  from  the  high  estate  of  the  man  who 
delighted  in  his  work  to  the  miserable  condition 
of  the  man  who  is  made  wretched  by  his  toil.  The 
case  of  the  women  who  are  compelled  in  these  days 
to  make  their  living  in  the  factory  and  in  the  store, 
of  all  things  and  above  all  things,  is  most  pitiable. 
They  were  meant  to  sing  at  their  work.  The  spin- 
ning-wheel was  itself  a  song,  and  the  varied  house- 
hold tasks  lent  themselves  to  music.  The  Indians 
of  the  Pueblos  have  songs  with  which  they  accom- 
pany the  grinding  of  the  wheat  and  the  making 
of  the  bread  and  the  weaving  of  the  mat,  but  in  our 
modern  system  we  compel  the  worker  to  a  crim- 
inal silence.  Not  only  is  all  song  drowned  by  the 
racket  of  the  factory  but  it  is  condemned  as  harm- 
ful to  that  efficiency  which  the  modern  industrial 
establishment  demands  of  its  worker. 

In  our  present  industrial  system,  work  is  joy- 
less to  the  worker,  because  it  is  altogether  void  of 
interest.  The  great  mass  of  men  and  women  em- 
ployed in  our  industrial  institutions  cannot  by  any 
possibility  find  interest  in  their  work.  The  di- 
vision of  labor  has  been  carried  to  such  excess  that 
the  task  assigned  to  eacli  individual  has  no  relation 
whatever  in  his  mind  to  the  task  as  a  whole,  and 
because  of  this  it  does  not  engage  his  thought. 


172      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

When  he  has  once  mastered  the  little  detail  which" 
is  assigned  to  him,  then  his  mental  powers  are  ar- 
rested; he  ceases  to  think,  and  his  time  drags  as 
if  he  were  in  a  prison  cell  with  nothing  to  do.  His 
intelligence  is  beating  against  the  cage  that  con- 
fines him  and  asks  him  to  be  free.  The  action  by 
which  he  performs  his  task  has  become  automatic. 
He  himself  is  not  in  the  task.  His  thoughts  are 
out  in  the  open.  He  is  with  his  fellows  in  the  sa- 
loon, or  with  his  wife  or  children  in  the  home,  or 
with  his  best  girl  in  the  moving-picture  show. 
Using  his  own  strong  language,  he  does  not  "  care 
a  damn  "  for  his  job ;  his  job  is  nothing  to  him, 
and  he  would  shunt  it  in  a  moment  if  it  were  not 
for  the  wage  that  it  brings  him.  No  wonder  that 
he  watches  the  clock  and  as  soon  as  the  last  second 
of  the  time  of  his  sentence  is  past  drops  his  tool, 
deserts  his  machine,  and  hurries  away  from  the 
place  of  his  confinement  out  into  the  open.  Once 
the  factory  door  closes  upon  him  he  is  a  man 
again,  and  the  joylessness  of  his  working-life  finds 
its  reaction  in  a  feverish  reach  for  joy  as  soon  as 
his  working-hours  are  over.  It  is  this  reaction 
that  crowds  the  saloons  with  men  and  fills  the  pic- 
ture-shows with  women.  Discontent  is  the  nat- 
ural product  of  a  system  that  has  deprived  work 
of  the  element  of  joy.  The  modern  worker  does 
not  find  in  his  task  that  assurance  of  usefulness 


THE  EEVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS         173 

which  is  essential  to  the  feeling  of  entire  satisfac- 
tion. He  is  not  making  things  to  be  used.  He  is 
making  them  to  be  sold.  The  manufacturer  does 
not  care  primarily  whether  the  products  of  his  fac- 
tory are  useful  or  not.  What  he  desires  is  that 
they  shall  be  salable.  He  is  making  them,  not  for 
use,  but  for  the  market,  and  he  will  make  anything 
that  will  sell.  He  will  manufacture  a  soothing- 
syrup  for  children  and  put  it  on  the  market,  though 
he  knows  very  well  that  that  soothing-syrup  will 
not  be  useful,  but  harmful.  It  will  stupefy  the 
child,  injure  its  body,  dwarf  its  intelligence,  and 
invade  the  sanctities  of  its  soul.  If  only  articles 
of  real  use  were  made  in  our  various  industries,  we 
could  close  at  least  one-half  of  all  our  factories. 
It  is  this  that  angers  the  well-meaning  worker. 
He  is  compelled  to  do  things  that  his  soul  abhors; 
and  even  where  his  work  has  usefulness  as  its  end, 
he  is  compelled  to  skimp  and  scamp  that  work  in 
order  to  meet  the  prices  of  the  market.  Our  mod- 
ern business  world  is  eaten  to  the  very  marrow 
with  the  germs  of  dishonesty.  The  honest  man 
must  compete  with  the  scoundrel;  the  competitive 
system  under  which  he  lives  breeds  scoundrel  ism 
just  as  bad  air  breeds  tuberculosis.  Our  work- 
people are  conscious  of  all  this.  Their  souls  are 
blighted  because  so  much  of  their  energy  goes  into 
useless  production,  and  they  will  not  be  content 


174      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

until  some  radical  change  is  made  that  directs  the 
forces  of  labor  to  higher,  nobler  purposes  than 
those  which  now  employ  it.  Work  must  be  known 
to  be  useful  if  it  is  to  continue  to  be  interesting, 
and  without  interest  in  his  work  the  worker  cannot 
be  content. 

But  before,  above,  and  beyond  all,  the  modern 
system  of  industry  violates  that  principle  of  true 
work  which  forbids  that  work  shall  be  carried  be- 
yond the  point  of  reasonable  endurance.  It  is  of 
the  very  essence  of  our  modern  methods  that  a  man 
shall  be  speeded  up  to  and  beyond  the  limit  of  his 
strength.  He  is  pitted  against  the  forces  of  na- 
ture. He  is  dragged  in  the  weight  of  a  mighty 
and  a  tireless  machine.  No,  in  this  the  writer  is 
mistaken,  the  machine  is  not  tireless,  but  the  man 
is  compelled  to  work  with  the  machine  and  he  has 
not  the  same  care  bestowed  upon  him  that  is  given 
to  the  machine.  The  human  element  is  not  con- 
sidered. The  Song  of  the  Shirt  is  forgotten.  "  We 
forget  that  it  is  not  linen  we  are  wearing  out,  but 
human  beings'  lives."  With  every  day  in  the  or- 
dinary factory  the  worker  is  expected  to  spend  not 
only  the  income  of  his  energies,  but  a  little  of  the 
capital.  Each  day,  after  a  certain  period,  he  comes 
less  able  to  his  task.  The  original  sources  of  power 
within  him  are  not  so  strong  as  they  were  the  day 
before.     And  before  he  has  reached  middle   life 


THE  EEVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS  175 

be  finds  his  only  capital,  which  is  his  labor-power, 
gone.  The-  bank-account  is  overdrawn,  the  purse 
is  empty,  and  the  man  is  no  longer  equal  to  his 
task.  So,  he  goes  into  the  discard;  there  is  no 
pity  in  business  for  his  gray  hair  or  his  dimmed 
eyes,  or  his  faltering  lips,  or  feeble  grasp.  He  is 
used  up,  and  that  is  the  end  of  him.  It  is  this  that 
is  frightening  the  working-class  and  exciting  in 
them  a  mad  passion  of  discontent.  They  know 
that  they  are  giving  more  than  they  get.  They  are 
fighting  desperately  against  exhaustion;  and  they 
will  fight  and  they  ought  to  fight  until  it  shall  be 
possible  for  a  man  to  live  in  vigor  beyond  middle 
life  and  into  old  age.  Society  has  no  right  to  lay 
upon  the  working-class  a  task  too  heavy  for  it  to 
bear,  and  the  working-class  has  no  right  to  bear 
that  burden,  which  in  the  end  breaks  its  power  and 
so  destroys  the  labor-supply  of  the  community. 

The  element  of  monotony  is  also  a  source  of 
great  discontent.  No  one  who  has  been  without 
experience  knows  anything  of  the  misery  that 
comes  to  the  working  girl  and  boy  in  the  first  period 
of  their  employment.  The  girl  and  the  boy  is  each 
put  to  some  detail  which  has  to  be  learned  by 
repetition  that  employs  only  one  muscle  of  the 
system,  that  gives  occupation  to  only  one  filament 
of  the  brain.  This  muscle  has  to  be  exercised  over 
and  over  again,  until  it  shrieks  with  pain;  this 


176       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

filament  of  the  brain  has  to  be  held  until  it  cries 
out  in  agony.  And  so  it  goes  until  use  has  dead- 
ened the  muscle  and  the  brain-cell,  and  then  that 
boy  or  that  girl  becomes,  so  far  as  that  work  is 
concerned,  a  machine.  The  living  creature  no 
longer  does  the  work  as  a  whole.  It  is  the  auto- 
matic action  of  the  nerve  and  the  cell,  and  because 
of  this  the  boy  and  the  girl  become  more  and  more 
circumscribed  in  intelligence.  If  they  are  kept  at 
their  job  they  become  expert  at  that  task,  they  are 
able  to  produce  a  greater  quantity  of  the  com- 
modity which  that  particular  function  creates. 
Hence,  they  are  more  valuable  to  the  system.  But 
while  they  are  of  more  worth  to  the  factory,  they 
are  of  less  worth  to  themselves.  Whole  regions  of 
their  organization  are  rendered  useless  because  of 
lack,  of  exercise.  These  outlying  portions  of  the 
system  do  not  die  easily.  They  are  continually 
crying  out  for  the  right  to  live.  They  are  making 
the  hours  of  labor  miserable  and  breeding  an  un- 
appeasable discontent  in  the  heart  of  the  worker. 
He  seeks  to  escape  from  his  task  because  that  task 
is  killing  his  soul.  The  present  writer  was  told 
by  the  head  of  a  great  manufacturing  establish- 
ment that  when  the  hours  were  long  and  the  wages 
low  the  average  of  regular  attendance  was  about 
eighty-nine  per  cent.  Since  the  hours  have  been 
shortened  and  the  wages  increased  the  average  of 


THE  KEVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS         177 

regular  attendance  has  fallen  to  fifty-four  per  cent. 
Business  men  could  not  see  the  reason  underlying 
this  fact,  but  to  the  outsider  the  reason  was  evi- 
dent. In  this  establishment  girls  were  employed 
in  the  sorting  of  buttons.  Hour  after  hour  the 
eyes  were  fixed,  and  the  fingers  flew.  The  dread- 
fulness  of  monotony  distressed  the  worker.  Her 
added  wage  enabled  her  to  enjoy  more  leisure  and 
she  fled  from  her  bench  to  recreate  herself  out  of 
doors,  to  find  change  of  occupation  and  to  employ 
the  other  organs  of  her  nature  in  their  proper 
work.  The  shorter  hour  is  a  necessity  arising  out 
of  the  wearisoineness  of  the  modern  method  of  pro- 
duction. The  division  of  labor  demands  the  di- 
vision of  time.  Only  a  small  portion  of  it  can  be 
given  to  the  one  little  task  that  in  our  factories  is 
assigned  to  the  individual  worker.  Long  hours 
necessarily  breed  discontent. 

The  heads  of  the  establishments  are  not  subject 
to  the  monotony  which  is  the  lot  of  their  workers. 
Their  employment  is  interesting,  varied,  and  does 
not  take  up  all  their  time.  When  the  head  of  a 
great  establishment  tells  you  that  he  works  six- 
teen or  eighteen  hours  a  day  and  then  compares 
himself  with  his  workmen  he  is  guilty  of  a  con- 
structive lie.  He  does  not  work  at  any  one  task 
sixteen,  eighteen,  or  even  six  hours  a  day.  His 
mind  is  constantly  occupied  with  the  larger  things 


178       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

of  life,  lie  is  passing  from  one  subject  to  another,  he 
is  going  in  and  out,  he  would  not  submit  for  a 
single  day  to  the  desk  work  or  machine  work  that 
he  places  upon  those  whom  he  employs. 

The  chief  grievance  of  the  modern  workman  with 
his  work  is  that  he  has  no  control  over  it.  It  is 
not  his  work,  it  is  the  work  of  some  one  else.  His 
mind  does  not  conceive  it,  his  will  does  not  direct 
it,  it  is  only  his  muscular  power,  for  the  most  part, 
that  is  employed.  Because  of  this  the  man  degen- 
erates from  a  self-controlling  being  into  a  con- 
trolled machine.  Every  moment  of  his  working- 
life  he  is  under  direction.  He  is  compelled, 
whether  he  will  or  not,  to  do  a  certain  thing  in  a 
certain  way.  He  may  have  ideas  of  his  own  as  to 
how  the  work  ought  to  be  done,  but  in  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  cases  he  is  told  that  it  is  not  his  business 
to  think,  that  there  are  men  appointed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  thinking,  and  it  is  his  job  to  carry  out  their 
thought.  Nothing  is  or  can  be  more  harassing 
than  the  perpetual  nagging  to  which  the  working- 
man  is  subjected.  The  foreman  who  has  the  im- 
mediate oversight  of  his  work,  is  there  at  his  elbow 
all  the  time;  and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  foreman  to 
find  fault ;  unless  the  foreman  can  make  the  higher 
powers  believe  that  he  is  a  necessity  because  of 
the  stupidity  of  those  who  are  under  him  he  can- 
not maintain  himself  in  his  position.     No  one  un- 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS  179 

acquainted  with  wliat  goes  ou  within  the  walls  of 
our  various  industrial  establishments  knows  any- 
thing of  the  fret,  the  worry,  the  anger,  that  is  ex- 
cited in  the  mind  of  the  working-man  by  the  con- 
stant and  often  unnecessary  interference  of  his  im- 
mediate superior.  He  is  worse  off  in  this  respect 
than  the  horse.  A  man  can  curse  a  horse  and  a 
horse  will  not  mind  it,  but  injurious  language 
wounds  the  soul  of  a  man.  The  profanity  which 
is  hurled  at  the  worker  destroys  his  self-respect, 
excites  in  him  a  rage  and  a  rebellion  that  leads  to 
industrial  outbreaks.  Many  a  strike  can  be  ex- 
plained when  we  once  know  what  goes  on  in  the 
factories  and  of  the  outrages  which  are  heaped  on 
the  worker. 

Beside  this  direct  interference  with  the  volun- 
tary power  of  the  worker  there  is  that  constant 
pressure  upon  his  will  which  the  system  exercises. 
The  workman  has  nothing  to  say  concerning  the 
conditions  of  his  work,  the  mode  of  its  operation, 
or  its  final  output.  He  cannot  identify  himself 
with  the  establishment  for  which  he  works,  because 
he  is  an  outsider.  All  that  is  done  by  the  factory, 
the  store,  or  the  shop  is  a  secret  from  him,  just  as 
much  as  if  he  were  not  employed  there  at  all.  Our 
industrial  system  is  organized  upon  a  principle 
which  in  politics  we  have  discarded.  Power  is 
centralized  and  descends  from  above.     Orders  are 


180      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

given  which  must  be  obeyed.  Imperialism  is  the 
rule  in  industry.  We  have,  therefore,  at  the  pres- 
ent time  men  who  in  the  greater  matters  of  life, 
which  are  controlled  by  the  State,  have  the  right 
to  say  what  shall  be  done.  In  our  cities,  theoretic- 
ally at  least,  the  whole  body  of  the  male  citizen- 
ship determines  the  policy  of  the  city  and  chooses 
the  men  who  are  to  carry  that  policy  into  effect. 
The  citizens  assemble  in  meetings  and  freely  dis- 
cuss all  matters  pertaining  to  the  city,  and  we  look 
upon  that  as  the  only  possible  way  of  securing  effec- 
tive administration  of  the  city's  affairs.  When- 
ever this  method  is  neglected,  and  the  citizens  cease 
to  take  interest,  then  the  affairs  of  the  city  are 
badly  administered,  the  officials  are  corrupt  and 
the  city  suffers  loss  and  disgrace.  In  America  our 
cities  have  been  the  source  of  shame  because  the 
democratic  principle  has  been  violated.  We  are 
now  repenting  of  this  and  the  people  are  resuming 
control  of  their  own  affairs.  That  which  obtains 
in  a  city  must  also  hold  in  a  great  industrial  es- 
tablishment. It  can  no  longer  be  said  that  any  one 
man  or  small  group  of  men  own  the  business,  and 
have  a  right  to  do  with  their  own  as  they  please. 
The  business  is  the  result  of  the  combined  capital 
and  labor,  intellectual  and  physical,  of  all  who  are 
engaged  in  the  work,  and  every  man,  no  matter 
how  important  or  minute  his  task,  has  or  ought  to 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS  181 

have  an  interest  in  what  goes  on.  We  cannot  have 
a  democratic  State  training  our  citizens  in  the 
principles  of  democracy,  and  at  the  same  time  or- 
ganize the  great  business  that  goes  on  in  industry 
upon  monarchical,  aristocratical,  or  imperialistic 
principles.  There  will  never  be  content  in  the  in- 
dustrial world  until  the  working-class  as  a  body 
is  organized  into  the  industries.  They  must  be 
looked  upon  as  essential  elements  as  much  and 
more  to  be  considered  than  the  capital  which  up  to 
this  time  has  reigned  supreme  in  the  business. 
Every  well-organized  industrial  or  commercial  es- 
tablishment should  have  the  whole  body  of  the 
working-force  in  direct  relation  to  the  enterprise. 
Meetings  of  the  men  must  be  held  where  the  poli- 
cies of  the  establishment  may  be  discussed.  In  a 
properly  organized  industry  or  commercial  enter- 
prise the  men  who  are  employed  will  be  in  a  large 
measure  the  owners.  Instead  of  being  employed 
by  the  establishment,  they  will  themselves  elect 
their  foreman,  their  superintendents  and  the  other 
officers  of  the  concern,  or  else  they  will  elect  a 
board  of  directors  responsible  to  them  for  the  con- 
duct of  the  business.  This  plan  is  already  work- 
ing effectively  in  the  many  large  cooperative  insti- 
tutions that  are  now  flourishing  in  England  and 
on  the  Continent  of  Europe.  In  Leipsic  there  is 
such  an  institution,  which  is  owned  and  controlled 


182       THE  KISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

by  the  operators.  They  employ  the  superintend- 
ents and  other  officers  and  these  officers  are  directly 
accountable  to  the  whole  body  of  the  workers. 
This  experiment  has  been  most  successful.  In  Bel- 
gium the  working-class  are  rapidly  becoming  co- 
operative and  socialized.  They  own  the  tools  that 
they  use,  they  employ  the  men  whom  they  need 
for  direction  and  oversight.  Not  until  our  indus- 
trial system  is  revolutionized  and  the  working-men 
are  admitted  into  full  partnership  with  the  rest 
of  the  force,  shall  we  have  anything  like  peace  in 
the  industrial  world.  Men  will  not  and  cannot 
long  submit  to  conditions  that  reduce  them  to  the 
place  of  mere  automatons.  The  exercise  of  the 
will  is  essential  to  the  development  of  humanity, 
and  if  we  have  a  large  population  who  have  lost 
their  will  power,  then  we  are  on  the  downgrade 
and  the  overthrow  of  our  present  order  is  not  far 
distant.  When  the  mass  of  the  people  have  lost 
the  power  of  choosing,  then  they  are  the  ready 
victims  of  any  stronger  will  that  seeks  to  rule 
them.  This  will  lead  at  last  to  the  triumph  of 
the  evil  forces  that  are  perpetually  at  work  in  hu- 
man society  for  its  destruction.  If  the  disinte- 
grating powers  are  to  be  resisted  it  can  only  be 
done  by  the  active  cooperation  of  all  the  good  wills 
in  the  community.  If  these  good  wills  have  been 
subjugated,   then   there   is   nothing   to   withstand 


THE  KEVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS  183 

the  evil  will  in  its  effort  to  master  mankind.  It  is 
not  the  wicked  man  that  is  a  danger  so  much  as  it 
is  the  man  of  feeble  will.  Hence  it  is  essential  to 
the  safety  of  society  that  the  will  should  be  con- 
stantly exercised,  that  debates  should  be  had  upon 
every  great  question,  and  that  question  decided 
upon  its  merits.  Our  present  plan  of  shutting  out 
the  mass  of  the  workers  from  any  right  to  debate 
the  conditions  and  the  results  of  their  employment 
is  suicidal.  The  end  of  it  will  be  the  overthrow 
of  a  system  that  so  ignores  that  which  is  necessary 
to  its  own  safety. 

The  final  and  most  potent  cause  of  present  in- 
dustrial discontent  is  the  unjust  distribution  of 
the  products  of  labor.  The  working-man  has  be- 
come conscious  of  the  fact  that  he  is  not  getting 
his  share  of  the  output.  He  sees  wealth  piling  up 
as  the  result  of  the  work  which 'he  and  his  fellows 
are  doing,  and  at  the  same  time  he  is  feeling  the 
cramp  of  poverty  in  his  own  life.  It  is  becoming 
more  and  more  difficult  for  him  to  maintain  a  de- 
cent standard  of  living  for  himself  and  his  chil- 
dren. Let  him  be  as  efficient  as  he  may,  let  him 
speed  up  to  the  limit  of  his  powers,  and  he  still 
finds  himself  falling  behind.  The  organization  for 
which  he  works  becomes  more  and  more  wealthy 
and  powerful,  the  owners  of  that  organization 
amass  fabulous  fortunes  within  a  few  years,  while 


184      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

the  income  of  the  working-man  does  not  increase 
but  rather  decreases  in  purchasing  power.  This 
fact  alarms  the  working-man.  He  sees  himself 
slowly  sliding  down  in  the  scale  of  living.  His 
wife  and  his  children  are  subjected  to  debasing  con- 
ditions, and  the  prospect  before  him  is  one  of  fur- 
ther depression.  To  rescue  himself  from  so  dan- 
gerous a  situation  he  strikes  out  blindly  in  this 
and  that  direction.  He  not  only  asks  for  a  higher 
wage,  but  also  for  shorter  hours,  and  for  better 
working  conditions.  In  making  these  various  de- 
mands he  is  seeking  a  readjustment  which  will 
give  to  him  and  his  class  a  more  equitable  place 
and  portion  in  the  world.  In  seeking  thus  to  make 
justice  an  essential  principle  of  the  business  world, 
the  working-man  is  in  reality  striving  for  the  more 
stable,  condition  of  society.  Without  justice,  that 
is,  without  rendering  to  each  man  that  which  is 
his  due,  not  his  mere  legal  due  but  that  which  be- 
longs to  him  by  right  when  all  things  are  fairly 
considered,  can  the  social  fabric  stand  firmly  on  its 
foundation.  It  is  a  proverb  that  a  fair  exchange 
is  no  robbery,  the  reverse  of  this  is  equally  true, 
an  unfair  exchange  is  robbery,  and  if  a  man  is 
compelled  to  give  in  exchange  more  than  he  gets, 
then  he  is  robbed  and  this  act  of  robbery  disturbs 
the  social  order.  It  is  a  matter  of  no  consequence 
whether  this  robbery  is  done  within  the  law  or 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS  185 

outside  of  it;  the  result  is  the  same.  TYhen  the 
nobility  and  clergy  of  France  robbed  the  peasantry, 
they  did  so  by  due  process  of  law,  but  this  did  not 
prevent  the  robbing  of  the  peasant  from  resulting 
in  the  disruption  of  the  society  of  France. 

There  is  a  supreme  court  of  last  appeal  which 
pays  no  attention  to  the  enactments  of  legislature 
or  the  quibbles  of  lawyers.  It  has  regard  only  to 
the  essential  justice  that  must  at  last  prevail  be- 
tween man  and  man.  This  tribunal  may  delay  its 
decision,  but  in  the  end  it  visits  its  penalty  upon 
the  violation  of  human  rights.  The  French  clergy 
and  nobility  carried  their  exactions  to  the  point  of 
exhaustion,  and  then  the  starving  peasantry  made 
its  appeal  to  the  divine  right  of  man  and  visited 
the  legalized  crimes  of  the  upper  classes  with  capi- 
tal punishment. 

The  working-class  is  making  its  appeal  from  the 
laws  of  men  to  the  law  of  man.  The  Son  of  Man 
is  sitting  in  judgment  on  our  social  arrangement. 
He  is  calling  to  his  bar  those  who  have  defrauded 
the  working-man  and  the  working-woman,  and  at 
the  bar  of  that  judgment  our  present  issues  will  be 
debated  and  decided  and  punishment  will  be  meted 
out  to  those  who  have  violated  the  fundamental 
laws  that  must  govern  in  human  society.  All 
tricks  of  trade,  all  secret  compacts  will  be  laid 
bare,  and  they  who  have  profited  by  dishonesties, 


186      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

oppressions,  and  disregard  of  human  rights,  will 
suffer  the  penalties  of  their  wrong-doing. 

The  uprisings  in  the  industrial  world  are  only 
symptoms  of  our  industrial  diseases.  As  long  as 
our  industrial  system  deprives  men  of  joy,  takes 
all  interest  out  of  their  working-life,  subjects  their 
wills  constantly  to  the  pressure  of  an  outside  will, 
and  deprives  them  of  the  full  and  fair  return  of 
their  labor,  so  long  must  we  suffer  all  that  we  are 
now  experiencing.  If  the  working-class  were  to 
settle  down  contentedly  into  its  lot,  if  it  were  not 
to  desire  interest  in  its  life,  joy  in  its  heart,  and 
freedom  of  will,  then  the  end  of  the  human  race 
as  a  race  would  be  in  sight.  It  is  only  by  the  re- 
sistance of  the  working-class  that  society  can  be 
saved.  Hence  it  is  that  those  who  have  the  welfare 
of  the  world  at  heart,  who  desire  to  see  a  better 
world  take  the  place  of  the  world  that  now  is,  are 
ranging  themselves  with  the  working-men  in  their 
struggle  to  improve  their  condition.  No  one  who 
thinks  at  all  can  wish  that  things  should  remain 
as  they  are;  nor  can  he  hope  that  they  will  so  re- 
main. As  change  is  the  rule  of  life,  we  must 
change  for  the  better  or  the  worse.  The  working- 
class  as  a  class  must  either  sink  down  into  com- 
plete subjection,  or  it  must  attain  to  perfect  free- 
dom. No  right-minded  man  or  woman  can  desire 
the  debasement  of  the  whole  working-class  and  it 


THE  REVOLT  OP  THE  WORKERS  187 

follows  as  a  matter  outside  all  debate  that  the  en- 
franchisement of  the  class  is  a  necessity  to  which 
all  the  social  forces  must  give  themselves  until  it 
is  accomplished. 

In  order  to  be  effective  and  lasting  this  work  of 
enfranchisement  must  be  accomplished  by  the  work- 
ers themselves.  No  mere  reform  enacted  by  the  class 
at  present  in  control  of  the  industrial  system  can  be 
more  than  palliative,  and  even  these  little  better- 
ments of  the  system  had  best  be  left  undone,  if  they 
delay  at  all  the  coming  of  that  revolution  in  the 
industrial  system  which  is  necessary  if  we  are  to 
free  the  workman  from  the  subjection  under  which 
he  labors  to-day.  The  employing-class  complain 
that  the  working-class  does  not  appreciate  what  is 
done  for  it.  The  answer  is,  that  no  man  appre- 
ciates what  is  done  for  him  until  he  has  lost  the 
power  of  doing  for  himself.  No  man  desires  to 
receive  as  a  charity  what  is  his  as  a  right,  nor 
will  he  consent  as  long  as  he  maintains  his  self- 
respect  to  get  something  for  nothing.  If  the  em- 
ploying-class is  giving  to  the  working-class  in  the 
way  of  welfare  work  that  which  the  working-class 
has  no  right  to,  then  the  employing-class  is  simply 
debasing  the  worker.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
this  welfare  work  is  taken  out  from  what  the 
worker  himself  earns,  then  the  employing-class  is 
offering  an  insult  to  the  worker.     It  is  saying  to 


188      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

the  worker :  "  We  know  better  than  you  how  your 
money  ought  to  be  spent,  and  we  will  spend  it  for 
you,  and  wTe  will  hold  you  ingrates  if  you  do  not 
agree  with  us  as  to  what  is  best  for  you."  This  is 
the  reason  why  the  workers  in  the  industrial  es- 
tablishments where  welfare  work  is  a  feature  are 
as  rebellious,  if  not  more  rebellious,  than  they  are 
in  other  industrial  establishments.  They  are  wise 
enough  to  know  that  all  these  frills,  as  they  call 
them,  are  paid  for  by  their  labor.  These  fine  build- 
ings, these  rest  and  lunch  rooms,  these  meals  pro- 
vided at  cost,  are  not  supplied  from  the  purse  of 
the  employing-class,  they  all  come  out  of  the  wage- 
fund,  as  it  is  called.  Interest  on  the  investment 
must  be  paid,  a  profit  must  be  provided  for,  and 
rent  before  these  improvements  can  be  made,  and 
consequently  in  the  last  analysis,  it  is  the  worker 
who  puts  up  the  money  that  is  spent  for  his  im- 
provement and  he  naturally  resents  the  fact  that 
this  is  all  done  for  him  and  not  by  him. 

The  slave  can  never  be  emancipated,  he  must 
emancipate  himself.  Consequently,  it  is  to  the 
working-class  that  the  working-class  as  a  whole 
must  look  for  its  deliverance.  Those  in  other 
classes  who  ally  themselves  with  the  workers  must 
make  that  alliance  such  as  shall  give  to  the  worker 
the  control  of  his  movement.     The  working-class 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  WORKERS  189 

needs  thinkers,  but  these  thinkers  must  think  with 
the  working-class  and  not  for  them.  The  working- 
class  needs  leaders,  but  these  leaders  must  cry: 
"  Follow  me,"  not :  "  Obey  me."  He  who  to-day 
throws  in  his  lot  with  the  great  revolutionary 
movement  that  is  going  on  in  the  wTorld  must  sac- 
rifice himself  to  the  movement,  He  must  not  hope 
to  ride  upon  it  to  power  and  wealth.  The  only 
privilege  that  can  be  allowed  him  is  the  privilege 
of  sacrifice. 

The  demand  of  the  time  is  for  this  self-immola- 
tion on  the  part  of  men  and  women  who  have  in- 
herited or  received  from  the  present  order  educa- 
tion, wealth,  advantage.  So  only  can  the  rise  of 
the  working-class  to  power,  which  is  inevitable, 
be  freed  from  those  destructive  elements  which 
may  make  that  rise  disastrous  to  much  that  has 
already  been  gained  by  man  in  the  course  of  his 
evolution.  The  principle  of  advancement  is  to 
prove  all  things  and  to  hold  fast  that  which  is 
good.  If  the  present  ruling-class  clings  tena- 
ciously to  its  unfair  advantage,  fights  with  every 
weapon  that  it  can  find  the  force  that  is  seeking  to 
deprive  it  of  that  wThich  it  unjustly  holds,  then  wTe 
shall  have  a  struggle  to  the  death  and  in  that  death 
struggle  we  shall  lose  many  things  that  otherwise 
we  might  preserve  to  the  benefit  of  us  all.     If  the 


190      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

present  ruling-class  is  wise,  it  will  come  out  of  the 
citadel  of  privilege,  confer  with  the  subjected  class, 
and  make  fair  terms  with  its  industrial  enemies 
and  so  secure  a  lasting  industrial  peace. 


VIII 

THE  SLAVES  OP  THE   MARKET 

THE  economic  changes  that  have  taken  place 
within  the  last  century  have  revolutionized 
the  relation  of  production  to  consumption. 
Throughout  all  the  earlier  periods,  while  the  fam- 
ily was  exclusively,  or  in  a  large  measure,  the 
economic  unit,  the  producer  and  the  consumer  was, 
to  a  great  extent,  one  and  the  same  person.  The 
savage  who  wanders  about  picking  up  roots  and 
shell-fish  consumes  the  product  of  his  labor.  The 
fisherman  and  the  bowman  take  home  that  which 
they  themselves  have  caught  and  killed.  In  agri- 
cultural periods  the  farmer,  his  wife,  and  his  chil- 
dren made  use  of  the  things  grown  upon  the  farm. 
The  spinning-wheel  in  the  house  created  the  cloth 
that  the  people  of  the  house  made  into  clothing. 
This  relation  of  production  to  consumption,  while 
it  limited  the  range  of  consumption  to  what  we 
now  call  the  bare  necessities  of  life,  made  those 
necessities  secure.  The  man  who  was  possessed  of 
his  land  and  of  his  own  labor  had  no  cause  to  fear 
anything  except  the  mischances  of  the  natural 
world.     His   enemies   were   the   drought   and   the 

191 


192      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

flood;  but  as  these  were  only  occasional  in  their 
ravages,  he  passed  his  life  in  a  sense  of  security 
altogether  unknown  to  the  man  of  modern  times. 
Where  the  producer  and  the  consumer  are  the  same 
person,  that  person  has  the  most  complete  inde- 
pendence possible  to  mankind.  This  it  was  that 
gave  stability,  integrity,  and  contentment  to  the 
members  of  the  family  as  it  existed  in  ancient  and 
medieval  times.  The  members  of  this  institution 
did  not  have  to  consult  the  quotation  from  any 
market.  They  were  not  required  to  make  any  con- 
cessions to  the  purchasing  power,  for  they  them- 
selves were  the  purchasers  of  what  they  themselves 
produced.  It  was  to  their  interest  to  make  their 
products  as  pure  and  perfect  as  possible.  When  a 
woman  preserves  vegetables  or  meats  for  her  own 
use  she  is  under  no  temptation  to  adulterate  or  in 
any  way  skimp  the  product  that  she  is  laying  in 
store.  When  a  man  weaves  the  cloth  which  is  to 
make  the  coat  of  his  own  wearing,  he  will  see  to  it 
that  the  quality  of  that  cloth  is  as  fine  and  strong 
as  it  can  be  made.  When  one  is  building  a  house 
in  which  one  expects  to  live,  the  timbers  of  that 
house  will  be  the  best  that  can  be  found  and  the 
workmanship  of  the  highest  standard.  This  fact 
gave  to  the  ancient  methods  of  production  an  hon- 
esty, a  durability,  which  has  in  a  great  measure  been 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MARKET  193 

lost  through  the  changes  that  have  occurred  in  the 
economic   world. 

Production  is  no  longer  for  consumption.  The 
producer  and  the  consumer  are  not  only  different 
persons  but  they  are  strangers  one  to  another. 
While  the  producer  is  at  work  he  does  not  have  the 
interest  of  the  consumer  in  mind.  In  fact,  under 
our  present  arrangements,  the  interest  of  the  pro- 
ducer and  the  consumer  are  antagonistic.  When 
production  is  exclusively  for  sale  and  the  product 
must  find  a  buyer  before  it  can  be  consumed,  then 
we  have  that  natural  hostility  which  has  always 
existed  and  which  will  always  exist  between  the 
buyer  and  the  seller.  The  seller  wishes  to  get  the 
largest  return  possible  for  his  product.  The  buyer 
the  largest  returns  possible  for  his  money.  In  this 
conflict  the  seller  has  the  buyer  at  his  mercy.  The 
production  of  commodities  for  sale  is  carried  on 
out  of  sight  and  away  from  the  knowledge  of  the 
buyer.  The  buyer  has  to  trust  to  his  own  knowl- 
edge, not  based  upon  a  close  acquaintance  with  the 
product  which  he  is  purchasing,  but  upon  the  mere 
ordinary  knowledge  of  the  outsider,  and  when,  as 
in  the  modern  world,  the  products  are  largely  com- 
pounds, the  ingredients  of  which  can  only  be  known 
by  chemical  analysis,  the  buyer  is  altogether  at  the 
mercy  of  the  seller.     It  is  this  condition  which  has 


194      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

given  rise  to  the  complications  of  modern  commer- 
cial life  and  has  compelled  public  interference  with 
private  affairs.  Before  a  seller  in  these  days  can 
offer  his  commodity  to  a  buyer  he  has  to  submit  it 
to  governmental  inspection.  We  are  to-day  em- 
ploying a  vast  army  of  men  and  women  to  stand 
betwTeen  the  buyer  and  the  seller  in  order  that  the 
seller  may  be  compelled  to  deal  honestly  with  the 
buj^er.  These  changes  have  come  to  pass  almost  un- 
consciously. We  are  hardly  aware  of  the  fact  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  freedom  of  contract,  which  is 
the  basic  doctrine  of  the  modern  commercial  world, 
has  already  become  a  nullity.  It  is  impossible  to- 
day for  two  men  to  enter  into  the  operation  of 
buying  and  selling  without  submitting  their  con- 
tract to  public  inspection.  The  seller  must  bring 
the  certificate  of  a  specialist  and  the  buyer  must 
tender  in  return  that  which  has  the  stamp  of  legal 
authority. 

These  are  some  of  the  precautions  that  are  taken 
to-day  in  order  that  man  may  not  suffer  unduly 
from  that  slavery  to  the  market  under  which  he  is 
living.  The  subdivision  of  labor  has  made  each 
individual  dependent  upon  the  process  of  exchange 
in  a  manner  never  before  known  to  the  history  of 
the  world.  Not  so  long  ago  our  own  garden  fur- 
nished our  breakfast-table.  To-day  that  table  is 
supplied  by  products   from  every  quarter  of  the 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MARKET  195 

globe.  Formerly  man  carried  to  the  market  only 
a  small  portion  of  that  which  he  produced;  now  he 
carries  his  whole  product,  and  seeks  to  exchange 
that  product  for  all  that  he  requires  in  order  to 
live.  This  dependence  on  the  market  has  reduced 
mankind  to  a  condition  of  insecurity  unknown  to 
ancient  civilization,  for  even  the  slave  in  ancient 
times  was  incorporated  into  an  institution  which 
in  return  for  his  labor  provided  his  necessities. 
He  ate  at  the  master's  table,  he  drank  of  the  mas- 
ter's cup,  and  he  was  sheltered  by  the  master's 
roof. 

In  the  modern  world  the  relation  of  the  producer 
to  that  which  he  consumes  is  so  hazardous  that  any 
little  accident  may  destroy  it.  The  connection  of 
each  person  with  the  market  is  so  slender,  a  mere 
filament  of  cobweb,  that  the  least  of  rough  winds 
or  untoward  accidents  can  sweep  it  awray  and  leave 
that  person  without  any  means  of  securing  for 
himself  the  requirements  of  his  daily  life.  It  is 
this  insecurity  that  makes  of  modern  life  such  a 
tragedy.  Once  upon  a  time  men  lived  in  fear  of  a 
hell  into  which  they  might  fall  after  their  earthly 
life  was  ended.  Now  they  are  in  constant  dread 
of  an  evil  which  threatens  their  daily  existence. 
A  mere  sickness  of  a  few  days  may  impoverish  the 
sick  man.  If  the  market  happens  to  change  and 
that  which  we  have  to  bring  to  it  is  no  longer  in 


196       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

demand,  then  we  go  back  from  the  market  empty- 
handed.  Changes  in  the  market  are  constantly 
plunging  vast  portions  of  the  population  of  the 
world  into  ruin.  When  a  man's  business  is  no 
longer  profitable,  the  man  fails  and  his  failure  ends 
his  opportunity  to  sell  and  to  buy  in  the  market. 

The  recent  changes  in  commercial  life  which 
have  brought  into  existence  those  aggregations 
which  are  called  trusts,  are  efforts  on  the  part  of 
the  market  to  prevent  the  final  result  of  the  law 
of  the  market  which  is  at  last  the  ruin  of  the  mar- 
ket. The  concentration  that  is  now  going  on  in 
the  commercial  world  is  not  the  outcome  of  any 
man's  desire,  criminal  or  innocent;  it  is  the 
inevitable  working  of  a  great  natural  force.  Se- 
curity is  of  the  essence  of  life.  As  long  as  the  old 
methods  of  production  and  consumption  were  in 
operation,  when  the  consumer  was  the  producer 
and  the  producer  the  consumer,  there  were  no  fluc- 
tuations in  the  market,  there  was  no  overproduc- 
tion, there  were  no  commercial  crises.  Even  when 
this  primitive  method  had  been  displaced  by  the 
more  complicated  ways  of  mercantile  life,  yet  the 
sphere  of  the  merchant  was  limited. 

Commerce,  as  we  know  it  to-day,  is  an  altogether 
modern  institution.  The  vast  improvement  in 
methods  of  intercommunication  and  transportation 
have  made  the  whole  world  one  market  and  each 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MARKET  197 

man  in  the  world  more  or  less  dependent  upon 
this  world-wide  exchange.  The  farmer  on  the 
plains  of  Dakota,  is  subject  to  changes  going  on  all 
round  the  world.  He  does  not  eat  his  wheat,  he 
sells  it,  and  the  price  of  his  wheat  is  not  deter- 
mined by  anything  within  his  control,  it  is  de- 
pendent on  world-wide  industrial  forces  and  the 
price  of  this  product  is  fixed  in  Chicago  and  in 
Liverpool.  A  frost  or  a  flood  in  Argentina  may 
add  to  the  price  of  his  commodity,  a  good  season 
in  the  same  country  may  tend  to  his  impoverish- 
ment. Our  life  to-day  does  not  depend  upon  our 
own  effort  or  wisdom,  it  is  contingent  upon  the 
vast  uncertainties  of  a  world-wide  exchange. 

In  ancient  times  the  merchant  carried  his  wares 
upon  the  back  of  a  camel.  He  did  not  deal  at  all 
in  the  necessities  of  life.  He  bought  and  sold  the 
luxuries.  He  carried  the  pearls  and  the  purples 
of  India  to  the  people  of  Syria  and  Greece,  and 
exchanged  them  for  the  gold  and  the  silver  of  these 
countries.  With  that  gold  and  silver  the  mer- 
chant purchased  his  own  necessities,  and  the  sur- 
plus of  the  exchange  went  to  his  enrichment.  In 
medieval  times  commerce  played  a  very  small  part 
in  the  life  of  the  Western  World.  Most  of  the 
articles  that  were  sold  in  the  market,  if  they  were 
transported  from  any  distance,  were  carried  in  so 
costly  a  fashion  that  only  the  very  rich  could  buy 


198      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

them.  The  customers  of  the  market  were  the  kings, 
the  princes,  and  the  nobles.  The  common  people 
had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  them.  The  fair, 
which  is  an  occasional  market,  was  the  resort  of  the 
middle  and  lower  classes.  In  these  fairs  exchanges 
were  made  of  the  overplus  of  the  various  home  in- 
dustries. The  fair  was  not  governed  by  the  fluctua- 
tions which  controlled  the  market.  The  farmer 
brought  his  surplus  of  cattle  to  this  common  meet- 
ing-place, these  cattle  were  purchased  by  other 
farmers  equally  acquainted  with  all  the  fine  points 
of  the  ox  and  the  cow,  and  the  "  fair  "  was  rightly 
so-called,  because  it  was  a  place  of  equal  exchange. 
The  buyer  and  the  seller  each  profited  by  the  trans- 
action. Neither  had  the  better  of  the  other,  and 
each  returned  home  satisfied  with  the  results  ob- 
tained hy  exchange.  As  the  fair  changed  more  and 
more  into  a  market,  it  lost  somewhat  this  charac- 
teristic of  perfect  fairness,  and  there  were  intro- 
duced into  its  transactions  the  characteristics  that 
pertained  to  larger  commercial  life.  But  clear  up 
to  modern  times  there  was  little  or  no  actual  traffic 
in  the  necessities  of  life.  The  bread  and  the  beer, 
the  cloth  and  the  leather,  were  all  produced  not 
primarily  for  sale  but  for  consumption.  The  pro- 
ducer had  the  actual  consumer  in  mind  before  he 
set  about  his  work  of  production.  The  housewife, 
as  she  sat  at  her  spinning-wheel,  measured  with  her 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MARKET  199 

eye  the  forms  of  her  husband  and  her  sons  while 
she  was  making  her  cloth.  Overproduction  was 
then  an  impossibility.  When  she  had  made  suffi- 
cient cloth  to  supply  the  demands  of  her  household 
she  ceased  spinning.  When  the  head  of  the  house 
had  tanned  leather  sufficient  for  the  uses  of  the 
house,  he  ceased  making  leather;  and  this  law  ap- 
plied to  all  the  necessities  of  life.  That  disease  of 
modern  times,  overproduction,  was  impossible  in 
the  ancient  world.  The  poverty  of  ancient  times 
was  occasioned  not  by  a  surplus,  as  it  is  to-day,  but 
by  a  deficit.  Human  labor  might  not  in  those  times 
have  been  able  to  keep  up  with  human  desire,  but 
it  never  overpassed  that  desire  and  by  a  glut  stopped 
the  wheels  of  production  and  by  so  doing  reduced 
men  to  starvation. 

Overproduction  is  the  chronic  disease  of  modern 
industry.  We  have  been  placed  in  the  absurd  sit- 
uation of  going  without,  not  because  we  have  not 
enough,  but  because  we  have  too  much.  Produc- 
tion for  sale  instead  of  for  consumption,  is  the 
germ  of  this  disease.  The  merchant  to-day  has  to 
work  at  haphazard.  The  manufacturer  has  to 
guess  at  the  amount  of  his  product  that  may  be 
needed  in  the  near  future,  and  when  as  at  the  pres- 
ent time,  the  business  of  making  and  selling  is  car- 
ried on  by  a  multitude  of  people,  all  working  in 
the  dark,  we  have  and  must  have  the  recurrent 


200      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

crises  which  have  wrought  such  havoc  to  human 
happiness  in  our  modern  world.  The  leaders  of 
our  manufacturing  and  commercial  life  are  quite 
aware  of  this  condition  and  they  are  seeking  a  way 
of  escape.  Their  effort  to  control  the  market  is 
simply  a  desire  on  their  part  to  bring  order  out 
of  confusion.  Instead  of  being  the  malefactors  of 
great  wealth  which  they  seem  to  be  to  the  on- 
lookers, they  are  really  the  benefactors  of  mankind, 
and  their  great  wealth  is  the  natural  result  of  the 
benefactions  which  they  have  conferred  upon  the 
world  at  large.  The  evils  which  have  come  with 
this  reorganization  of  commercial  life  are  tem- 
porary, the  benefits  will  endure  to  the  permanent 
happiness  of  mankind.  Our  great  masters  of  in- 
dustry are  doing  for  the  commercial  world  what  the 
great  statesmen  of  France  did  for  that  country  in 
the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  They  are 
bringing  order  out  of  chaos.  As  Eichelieu  made 
of  a  vast  number  of  little  counties  and  dukedoms  a 
strong  centralized  kingdom,  giving  to  France 
thereby,  for  two  centuries,  the  mastery  of  Europe, 
so  these  great  lords  of  industry  are  making  out  of 
a  vast  inchoate  competitive  system  an  ordered  cen- 
tralized system.  France  benefited  immensely  by 
the  statesmanship  of  Eichelieu,  and  would  have 
benefited  still  more  if  the  French  people  as  a  whole, 
had  been  wise  enough  to  appropriate  to  themselves 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MAEKET  201 

the  powers  engendered  by  the  concentration  which 
was  brought  about  by  the  efforts  of  the  statesman. 
France  suffered  untold  evils  because  she  allowed 
her  government  to  be  privately  owned  instead  of 
making  it  the  common  property  of  the  people. 
France  repented  of  her  economic  and  political  sin 
in  the  blood  and  terror  of  the  Revolution.  She 
then  made  her  centralized  government  public,  and 
not  private,  property;  and  in  spite  of  her  many 
failings,  the  consequence  of  her  many  sins,  France 
is  to-day  economically  the  richest  country  in 
the  world  and  her  common  people  the  most  se- 
cure. That  which  was  true  of  France,  may  be 
true  to-day  of  all  industrial  nations.  Any  effort 
to  undo  the  work  of  the  master  class  and  to  throw 
mankind  back  into  a  state  of  unlimited  competition, 
will  prove  futile.  The  evils  of  the  market  are  too 
plain  and  painful  to  permit  their  longer  contin- 
uance. Man  must  deliver  himself  from  the  slavery 
to  the  market.  He  must  control  the  market,  the 
market  must  not  be  permitted  to  control  him. 

Industry  is  returning  upon  its  own  orbit.  It 
began  in  cooperation.  It  is  returning  in  coopera- 
tion. Cooperation  is  a  demand  of  nature.  The 
man  and  the  woman  must  cooperate  in  order  to  sat- 
isfy their  desire  for  children.  In  the  household 
all  the  members  of  the  household  work  together 
for  the  purpose  of  producing  all  the  requirements 


202       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

of  the  household.  Division  of  labor  is  cooperation. 
It  is  because  of  this  that  men  work  together  instead 
of  each  one  trying  to  produce  for  himself  all  the 
things  that  he  needs. 

Competition  may  be  the  life  of  trade.  It  is  not 
the  life,  but  the  death,  of  industry.  Emulation  may 
be  conducive  to  the  betterment  of  industry,  but 
competition  never.  Not  only  in  the  home,  but  in 
the  city,  cooperation  is  that  higher  law  that  makes 
possible  life  in  the  city.  In  all  the  ancient  cities 
the  individual  was  simply  a  cell  in  the  city  life. 
Every  man  contributed  to  the  welfare  of  the  city 
and  so  the  city  became  prosperous.  The  bread  for 
the  city  was  baked  by  the  city  where  it  was  not 
baked  for  the  family  by  the  family.  The  medieval 
city  had  its  municipal  oven  for  the  common  use 
of  all  those  who  wished  so  to  bake  their  bread. 
And  the  city  did  for  each  citizen  all  that  each  citi- 
zen could  not  well  do  for  himself.  It  was  not  nec- 
essary in  those  days  that  the  city  should  perform 
many  functions  that  are  now  demanded  of  the  gov- 
ernment, because  the  family  was  in  existence  doing 
the  work  that  is  now  performed  by  our  modern 
industrial  system.  The  important  function  of  pro- 
viding food,  clothing,  and  shelter  are  no  longer 
private  matters,  they  are  public  affairs.  The  or- 
ganization of  modern  society  has  become  so  com- 
plicated that  it  is  only  through  public  control  that 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MAEKET  203 

these  necessities  can  be  properly  provided  and  dis- 
tributed. We  are  necessarily  within  the  power  of 
those  who  have  the  mastery  of  production  and  dis- 
tribution. These  men  of  the  market  decide  for  us 
what  we  shall  eat  and  what  we  shall  drink  and 
wherewithal  we  shall  be  clothed.  They  are  our 
real  rulers  and  unless  we  have  some  mastery  over 
them,  we  must  of  necessity  be  their  slaves.  Busi- 
ness men  know  the  value  of  cooperation  and  they 
have  organized  cooperatively  to  control  the  market, 
and  by  this  organization  they  have  secured  their 
supremacy. 

The  remedy  for  this  evil,  if  it  be  an  evil,  is  not 
to  disorganize,  but  to  carry  organization  one  step 
further.  It  has  been  well  said  that  if  we  are  to 
have  monopoly,  then  that  must  be  a  public  monop- 
oly, and  the  next  step  in  man's  industrial  deliver- 
ance is  the  assumption  of  public  control  over  all 
those  industrial  operations  that  have  become  too 
large  for  private  manipulation.  This  is  the  trend 
of  progress  at  present.  Wise  men  see  that  if  we 
are  to  be  delivered  from  the  thralldom  in  which 
we  are  now  held,  we  must,  through  those  organ- 
isms which  have  been  built  up  by  the  evolutionary 
process,  do  two  things.  We  must,  first,  make  the 
rulers  of  our  industrial  world  responsible.  They 
can  no  longer  be  left  free  to  do  what  they  will  with 
their  own,  because  what  they  claim  as  their  own 


204      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

is  really  not  their  own  but  common  property. 
Every  great  industrial  institution  is  created  by 
various  factors.  The  organizing  genius  of  its  orig- 
inator, the  expanding  desires  of  the  community, 
and  the  labor  of  the  worker,  each  of  these  fac- 
tors has  a  right  to  representation  in  the  control 
of  that  industry.  Our  political  life  is  based,  par- 
tially at  least,  upon  the  principle  that  as  all  the 
people  contribute  to  the  well-being  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  really  make  the  government  what  it  is, 
therefore,  government  is  the  property  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  officials  are  simply  servants  to  admin- 
ister the  estate  of  the  public.  Now  is  not  that 
equally  true  of  the  great  industrial  systems  of 
modern  times?  If  it  were  not  for  the  expanding 
life  of  the  people,  the  universal  genius  of  men  and 
women  for  social  life,  these  great  systems  could 
not  and  would  not  be  in  existence.  All  their  val- 
ues are  created  by  the  public.  They  are  essen- 
tially public  property,  and  as  such  should  be  in  the 
control  of  the  public.  If  we  are  to  be  free,  we 
must  ourselves  possess  some  integral  rights  to  the 
things  necessary  to  life.  Our  bread  and  meat,  our 
clothing  and  shelter,  should  not  be  subject  to  the 
WThims  and  the  whimsies  of  men  over  whom  we 
have  no  power  and  who  are  regardless  of  our  exist- 
ence. 

Social  or  public  control  is  to-day  encroaching 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MARKET  205 

more  and  more  upon  what  hitherto  had  been  called 
private  affairs.  We  are  to-day  employing  two  sets 
of  men  to  do  our  work.  We  employ  the  so-called 
private  business  man  to  manufacture  our  cloth, 
to  carry  it  to  the  market,  and  to  sell  it  to  us  in  the 
store.  We  hire  another  man  to  watch  over  him 
as  he  does  this  work.  A  great  host  of  officials  are 
now  engaged  in  the  task  of  inspecting  and  regu- 
lating business  affairs,  and  when  a  private  man  is 
discovered  in  any  act  of  which  the  public  disap- 
proves, this  private  man  is  brought  to  the  bar  of 
justice  and  we  have  all  the  expense  of  countless 
lawsuits  in  order  to  determine  the  exact  nature  of 
his  crime,  and  his  punishment.  This  is  an  enor- 
mous waste.  Sooner  or  later,  we  must  reach  the 
conclusion  that  public  matters  must  be  publicly 
managed  and  the  managers  of  such  concerns  di- 
rectly responsible  to  the  people.  The  manager  of 
a  railroad  is  equally  a  public  servant  with  the  chief 
of  police  or  the  chief  of  a  fire-department.  Each 
of  these  renders  service  to  the  public.  They  re- 
ceive their  reward  from  the  public  in  the  way  of 
salaries  or  profits  and  they  ought  to  answer  di- 
rectly to  the  public.  All  the  affairs  of  such  busi- 
ness should  be  as  open  to  inspection  as  are,  in 
theory,  the  affairs  of  our  cities  and  States. 

It  is  inevitable  that  public  control  should  evolve 
into    public    ownership.     The    owners    themselves 


206      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

will  at  last  demand  this.  If  they  are  not  permitted 
to  manage  their  own  business  in  their  own  way,  if 
at  every  turn  they  must  submit  to  the  direction  of 
some  outside  person,  then  their  business  will  in 
reality  cease  to  be  their  own,  and  their  interest  in 
it  will  decline  in  proportion  to  the  meddling  that 
comes  from  without.  Already  there  is  a  growing 
irritation  in  the  hearts  of  the  managers  of  our 
great  railways  and  other  enterprises,  because  of  the 
assumption  on  the  part  of  the  public  of  this  right 
to  interfere  with  their  affairs.  They  are  begin- 
ning to  say :  "  If  you  know  how  to  run  our  rail- 
roads better  than  we  do,  you  had  best  take  them 
over.  Give  us  what  they  are  worth  and  let  us  go 
free.  We  cannot  have  the  responsibility  without 
the  power." 

That  the  various  governments  must  assume  the 
direction  of  the  industrial  life  of  the  people  to  an 
extent  and  in  a  manner  heretofore  undreamed  of 
is  as  certain  as  anything  in  the  future  can  be  cer- 
tain. The  European  countries  are  far  in  advance 
of  the  United  States  in  this  matter  of  public  con- 
trol. They  have  the  ownership  and  operate  the 
means  of  transportation  and  intercommunication. 
Railroads,  telegraphs,  and  telephones  are  part  of 
the  State  administration.  Sooner  or  later  the  or- 
ganized community  must  assume  control  of  the  nat- 
ural sources  of  wealth.     The  land  must  be  social- 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MARKET  207 

ized  if  poverty  is  to  be  abated.  Waterways  cannot 
be  left  in  private  hands  if  the  health  of  the  people 
is  to  be  conserved.  Minerals  necessary  to  the  gen- 
eral good  can  no  longer  be  held  by  private  persons 
to  the  injury  of  the  public.  All  this  means  a  vast 
extension  of  public  operation  and  a  revolution  in 
the  conception  of  the  State.  Heretofore  it  has 
been  the  office  of  the  government  to  protect  the 
people  against  foreign  invasion  and  domestic  re- 
bellion. The  army  and  the  navy  have  been  the 
chief  concern  of  politics.  But  this  state  of  affairs 
is  rapidly  receding  into  the  past.  The  State  is 
evolving  into  an  organism  to  direct  the  general  life 
of  the  people  and  to  supervise  the  business  of  the 
community.  This  evolutionary  process  must  go  on 
until  the  people  are  delivered  from  the  chaotic 
condition  in  which  they  are  now  living.  The  mar- 
ket must  come  under  the  power  of  the  people  and 
be  regulated  by  the  public  authorities.  When  the 
railways  are  publicly  owned,  the  State  will  have 
the  right  to  discriminate  as  to  the  kinds  of  goods 
which  the  railways  may  carry.  When  they  are 
needed  for  the  transportation  of  wheat,  they  will 
be  so  used  to  the  exclusion  of  less  necessary  arti- 
cles. Instead  of  our  great  fleets  carrying  the  de- 
structive weapons  of  war,  they  will  transport  from 
other  lands  to  ours  the  blessings  of  peace.  The 
details  of  this  organization  cannot  be  set  down,  but 


208      THE  PJSE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

what  lias  already  been  done  is  a  forecast  of  what 
will  be  done.  The  great  nations  which  have  as- 
sumed public  control  of  the  means  of  transporta- 
tion and  intercommunication,  will  never  surren- 
der their  unlimited  control.  They  will  be  the  more 
likely  because  of  this  to  extend  the  realm  of  public 
ownership. 

This  coming  regime  will  call  for  a  wise,  strong 
people  to  live  under  it  and  to  administer  it.  A 
conception  of  citizenship  will  be  evolved  far  differ- 
ent from  that  which  now  obtains.  To-day  the  citi- 
zen has  very  little  to  do  with  the  city.  Public 
business  is  not  nearly  so  important  as  private  busi- 
ness. It  is  because  of  this  that  the  American  city 
has  fallen  into  so  shameful  a  condition  of  corrup- 
tion. The  able  man  does  not  care  to  give  his 
thought  or  time  to  its  concerns.  The  city  is  con- 
fining its  operation  to  the  police  and  the  fire-, 
department,  the  street  cleaning,  and  the  public 
health.  These  are  of  vast  importance,  but  they 
are  not  a  part  of  the  everyday  life  of  the  whole  citi- 
zenship, except  in  the  matter  of  the  streets.  The 
thought  of  the  citizen  is  not  occupied  with  the 
life  of  the  city,  he  is  thinking  of  his  own  business 
and  he  does  not  care  what  the  city  does,  if  only 
he  can  get  from  it  some  illicit  privilege  or  if  at  the 
worst  it  will  leave  him  alone.  When  the  com- 
munity as  a  community  begins  to  take  a  hand  in 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MAEKET  209 

the  business  of  providing  food,  raiment,  and  shel- 
ter, when  municipal  bakeries,  municipal  factories, 
and  municipal  houses  are  in  existence,  then  the 
citizen  will  sustain  a  relation  to  the  city  in  nearly 
all  that  concerns  his  life.  And  because  of  this  he 
will  have  a  greater  interest  in  the  community  and 
the  community  a  greater  interest  in  him.  It  will 
be  to  his  immediate  personal  comfort  that  the  city 
be  wisely,  honestly,  and  efficiently  administered, 
and  it  will  be  equally  necessary  to  the  well-being 
of  the  whole  community  that  each  man  be  an  effi- 
cient instrument  in  the  work  of  production. 

Efficiency  is  the  watchword  of  the  modern  busi- 
ness world,  but  that  efficiency  has  to  do  only  with 
the  workman  in  his  relation  to  his  work  in  the 
factory.  The  modern  system  of  efficiency  is  cre- 
ative of  inefficiency.  It  is  making  men  less  able 
than  they  ought  to  be,  confining  them  as  it  does  to 
a  single  operation :  these  men  are  of  no  value  out- 
side their  own  little  sphere  of  action.  And  this 
system  exhausts  efficiency.  It  drives  the  man  un- 
til he  falls  in  the  harness,  and  then  it  throws  him 
aside  and  harnesses  another  man  into  his  place. 
This  method,  while  making  for  efficiency  in  the 
factory  or  store,  makes  in  the  largest  degree  for 
inefficiency  in  the  community  at  large.  The  wastes 
of  our  industrial  system  are  a  charge  on  the  public 
purse.     When  the  people  as  a  whole  have  resumed 


210      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

control  of  their  own  affairs,  they  will  see  to  it  that 
this  waste  does  not  occur.  Men  will  be  trained  to 
a  given  work  so  that  they  can  do  that  rapidly  and 
well,  but  they  will  also  be  educated  to  occupy  their 
leisure  time  in  other  employments  of  benefit  to 
the  community  as  a  whole.  Their  relation  to  the 
market  will  be  strengthened.  Instead  of  being  at- 
tached to  it  by  one  little  nerve,  their  whole  nervous 
system  will  run  out  into  public  employment  for  the 
public  good.  The  whole  community  will  sit  in 
judgment  upon  the  industrial  life  of  man,  as  it  now 
sits  in  judgment  upon  his  moral  life.  An  idle  man, 
a  reckless  man,  will  be  arraigned  before  the  bar 
of  public  justice  and  that  condemnation  and  dis- 
cipline will  be  meted  out  to  him  which  the  public 
welfare  demands. 

In  the  future,  boys  and  girls  will  be  educated 
into  the  industrial  system  where  they  must  do  the 
work  of  their  lives.  During  the  whole  school 
period,  each  child  will  be  tested  with  a  view  of 
ascertaining  its  bent,  and  it  will  be  trained  in 
accordance  with  its  disposition.  Our  present  me- 
chanical system  of  education,  which  stamps  all  the 
children  with  the  same  die,  and.  sends  them  forth 
to  cast  about  until  they  find  their  place  in  the 
workaday  world,  will  give  place,  as  it  is  giving 
place,  to  a  wiser  system  that  ascertains  what  the 
child  can  best  do,  gives  it  a  particular  training  in 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MARKET  211 

that  ami  then  a  more  general  training  in  all  that 
pertains  to  the  fullness  of  living. 

To  have  control  of  the  market,  the  community 
must  have  the  ownership  of  the  labor-power  as 
well  as  the  more  material  sources  of  wealth.  In 
all  well-ordered  communities  it  is  the  law  that  if 
a  man  will  not  work,  neither  may  he  eat.  When 
idleness  and  uselessness  are  considered  as  crimes 
against  the  community  to  be  punished  as  such, 
then  we  shall  be  rid  of  parasites,  both  high  and 
low.  The  prince  and  the  pauper  will  be  banished 
from  every  well-ordered  society,  and  they  who  sim- 
ply talk  will  be  subjugated  by  those  who  do  the 
work.  Herbert  Spencer,  in  foretelling  the  coming 
of  socialism,  spoke  of  it  as  the  coming  slavery. 
In  his  mind  it  was  the  last  dire  calamity  that  was 
to  befall  the  human  race.  To  a  certain  degree, 
Spencer  was  right  in  his  forecast.  In  the  age  that 
is  coming,  man  will  be  a  slave.  He  always  has 
been  a  slave,  and  the  only  change  that  he  can 
ever  make  is  a  change  of  masters.  In  times  past 
he  has  been  the  slave  of  some  other  man,  who  has 
driven  him  to  his  work  and  taken  from  him  the 
product  of  that  work.  In  the  time  to  come,  he  will 
be  the  slave  of  beneficent  law.  The  law  will  compel 
him  to  do  his  work  and  will  see  to  it  that  he  receives 
a  full  return  for  that  work.  He  will  be  his  own 
master,  because  he  has  surrendered  the  ownership 


212       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

of  himself  to  the  public,  and  he  is  the  public.  St. 
Paul  liberated  the  slave  Onesirnus,  only  to  make 
him  the  slave  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  new  society 
will  liberate  the  wage-slave  only  to  make  him  the 
slave  of  the  public  good. 

It  has  been  said  that  this  public  control  of  the 
market,  both  in  production  and  consumption,  will 
be  followed  by  a  loss  of  initiative  and  a  dreary 
sameness  in  fashion.  The  answer  to  this  is,  that 
the  present  system  has  already  crippled  initiative 
and  destroyed  variety.  It  used  to  be  a  pleasure  to 
travel  from  country  to  country  if  for  nothing  else 
but  to  study  the  various  provincial  costumes. 
Twenty-five  years  ago  one  could  find  this  enjoy- 
ment in  the  various  lands  of  Europe  and  Asia. 
Our  modern  system  of  production  and  exchange  is 
destroying  all  this.  There  is  no  pleasure  in  travel 
to-day,  so  far  as  the  people  are  concerned.  The 
streets  of  Pekin  will  soon  be  as  monotonous  and  as 
ugly  as  the  streets  of  New  York.  The  Chinaman 
will  soon  be  clothed  in  a  hand-me-down,  and  the 
China  girl  in  a  shirt-waist.  It  is  asked  who  shall 
set  the  fashions  under  the  coming  society.  That 
question  is  answered  by  another:  Who  sets  the 
fashions  now?  Is  it  not  a  conclave  of  tailors  and 
modistes  in  Paris  and  London?  And  do  they  not 
outrage  humanity  by  their  efforts  to  secure  vogue 
for  ridiculous  patterns?     Would  it  be  any  more 


THE  SLAVES  OF  THE  MARKET  213 

difficult  to  have  a  fashion  board  in  every  great  com- 
munity to  settle  the  styles  for  the  coming  sea- 
son, to  study  the  peculiarities  of  land  and  race, 
and  bring  about  distinctiveness  once  more  in 
the  apparel  of  men?  If  the  present  system  con- 
tinues, ugliness  will  increase.  If  for  no  other  rea- 
son the  public  should  lay  its  hand  upon  these  great 
utilities  that  beauty  may  be  born  again.  As  for 
initiative,  it  is  a  quality  of  the  human  soul.  The 
inventive  genius  will  invent,  no  matter  what  hap- 
pens to  him.  To-day  he  is  thwarted  because  of  the 
great  difficulties  of  putting  his  invention  into  opera- 
tion. He  may  work  until  he  starves  and  bring  to 
light  some  wonderful  secret  of  nature,  but  if  he 
have  not  the  money,  then  that  secret  dies  with  him. 
It  is  in  this  region  above  all  others,  that  public  con- 
trol is  necessary.  The  inventor  is  and  should  be 
a  public  servant  to  be  rewarded  by  the  public.  His 
meed  of  honor  should  be  the  chaplet  of  glory  which 
is  laid  on  his  temple  by  public  authority  and  his 
satisfaction  the  pension  which  is  granted  to  him, 
as  a  reward  for  his  work. 

One  of  the  most  important  inventions  of  recent 
times  is  the  Babcock  milk-test.  Far  more  im- 
portant is  this  than  the  invention  of  the  moving- 
picture  or  the  gramophone.  This  test  was  discov- 
ered by  Prof.  Babcock  of  the  Wisconsin  University. 
When  he  was  asked  to  patent  it,  he  said :    "  Not  so. 


214      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

I  did  this  in  the  line  of  duty  as  a  servant  of  the 
State  of  Wisconsin.  It  belongs  to  the  public." 
The  Babcock  milk-test  has  made  cooperative  dairy- 
farming  possible,  and  added  immensely  to  the 
wealth  of  the  world.  He  has  a  low  conception  of 
human  nature  who  supposes  that  man  will  stop 
thinking  if  he  can  no  longer  put  a  price  on  his 
thought.  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  thought  that 
as  it  has  been  freely  received,  so  it  must  be  freely 
given. 

There  is  and  can  be  no  valid  objection  to  public 
control  of  the  business  of  providing  food,  clothing, 
and  shelter  for  the  public  wThich  does  not  lie  with 
equal  and  even  greater  validity  against  the  present 
private  control.  It  is  impossible  that  the  public 
should  make  such  a  mess  of  things  as  is  made  by 
the  present  owmers  and  operators.  The  discontent 
of  the  working-class,  the  shame,  the  degradation, 
and  misery  that  breeds  and  hides  in  the  dark  places 
of  our  civilized  communities  is  a  condemnation  of 
the  present  method  which  is  unanswerable.  The 
people  have  the  right  to  say  that  the  men  wTho  are 
now  running  the  machine  so  inefficiently  shall  give 
place  to  a  more  responsible  directorate,  that  an  ef- 
fort may  be  made  to  establish  a  better  working  sys- 
tem. 


IX 

WORKING-CLASS   RELIGION 

IN  his  effort  to  free  his  class  from  inherited  po- 
litical, industrial,  and  social  disabilities,  that 
delivered  from  these,  his  class  may  take  and  hold 
that  supreme  place  in  the  social  order  which  be- 
longs to  it  as  the  most  useful  and  most  numerous 
class  in  society,  the  class-conscious  working-man 
finds  himself  in  opposition  to  the  organized  religion 
of  his  time  and  country.  In  his  endeavor  to  change 
industrial  conditions  he  is  accused  of  being  a  traitor 
to  God  as  well  as  a  rebel  against  the  State.  In 
every  country  in  the  Western  World,  with  some 
noble  exceptions,  the  priests  and  the  preachers  are 
either  the  active  or  the  passive  allies  of  the  politi- 
cians in  their  enmity  to  the  rising  working-class. 
The  Catholic  Church  is  an  open  and  active  op- 
ponent of  the  working-class  movement.  The  va- 
rious Protestant  denominations  are,  for  the  most 
part,  in  sympathy  with  the  Catholic  organization 
in  its  hostility  to  an  organized  working-class.  The 
Catholic  priest  or  Protestant  minister  who  joins 
this  movement  does  so  at  his  peril. 

215 


216      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

This  attitude  of  the  organization  has  driven  the 
working-class,  as  a  class,  out  of  the  churches. 

It  is  an  admitted  fact  that  the  working-class  in 
all  countries  so  far  as  it  has  emerged  into  class- 
consciousness,  has  withdrawn  from  the  member- 
ship of  the  various  Christian  bodies.  It  looks  upon 
this  religion  as  a  force  organized  in  the  interest  of 
the  upper  classes  to  hold  it  down.  And  it  has 
reason  for  so  believing.  Organized  Christianity 
has  for  a  thousand  years  and  more  taught  the  lower 
classes  to  submit  themselves,  as  a  religious  duty, 
to  the  upper  classes.  In  the  language  of  the  Eng- 
lish Prayer  Book,  they  are  to  order  themselves 
lowly  and  reverently  to  all  their  betters.  These 
betters  in  England  are  the  lords  of  the  manor,  the 
squires  of  the  estates,  the  merchants  and  the  man- 
ufacturers, and  last  but  not  least  the  clergy.  The 
duty  which  has  been  thus  enforced  by  religion  is 
not  a  moral  duty;  it  has  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  right  or  wrong ;  it  is  simply  an  economic  duty. 
The  servant  is  to  obey  the  master,  not  because  that 
obedience  is  a  process  of  moral  development,  but 
because  it  conserves  the  present  order  of  things. 
It  is  for  the  well-being  of  the  master  that  the  serv- 
ant should  obey  him,  and  therefore  the  master  class 
seeks  religious  sanction  for  this  obedience. 

The  Christian  religion  as  now  organized  is  a  re- 
ligion based  upon  authority.     Whatever  may  have 


WOEKING-CLASS  RELIGION  217 

been  its  constitution  in  the  beginning,  it  very  soon 
conformed  itself  to  the  imperialistic  conception  of 
the  universe,  which  was  prevalent  in  the  Eoman 
Empire  during  the  formative  period  of  church  or- 
ganization. One  of  its  great  sayings  is:  "All 
power  is  given  me  from  above."  According  to  this 
conception,  the  whole  world  is  subject  to  an  al- 
mighty will,  which  will  is  external  to  the  world, 
operating  upon  it  rather  than  within  it.  This 
ruling  power  issues  its  decrees  which  must  be 
obeyed  under  divers  penalties.  It  distributes  re- 
wards and  punishments  according  to  its  own  pleas- 
ure. The  extreme  statement  of  this  doctrine  of 
divine  sovereignty  makes  everything  to  depend  upon 
the  unrestricted  will  of  the  sovereign,  and  that  will 
is  moved  only  by  its  own  pleasure.  In  accordance 
with  this,  Christianity  was  organized  imperialistic- 
ally.  The  power  centers  in  a  given  person.  By 
that  person  it  is  delegated  and  withdrawn.  In  the 
church  system,  power  is  centered  in  the  person  of 
God.  God  the  Father  delegated  that  power,  so  far 
as  this  world  is  concerned,  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Jesus  in  turn  gave  to  Peter  the  right  to  open  and 
to  shut.  Peter  in  turn  passed  this  authority  on 
to  his  successor,  the  Christian  Bishop  of  Rome. 
It  is  under  this  system  that  Christianity  is  operated 
to-day  in  its  largest  and  most  effective  organiza- 
tion.    This  has  given  to  authority  a  sweep  wider 


218      THE  BISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

and  more  effective  than  ever  before  exercised  by 
man  upon  men.  It  not  only  controls  the  actions 
of  men,  but  seeks  also  to  regulate  the  innermost 
movements  of  their  intelligence  and  their  con- 
science. The  very  thought  of  man  must  obey  the 
dictates  of  this  will.  The  saying  of  Paul  that  he 
must  bring  every  thought  into  subjection  to  Christ 
has  been  made  use  of  to  force  every  obedient  son 
of  the  Church  to  think  as  the  Church  thinks.  Any 
effort  at  freedom  of  thought  is  condemned  as  a  sin 
against  God.  The  result  of  all  this  has  been  to 
make  the  habit  of  obedience  second  nature  to  whole 
generations  of  mankind.  For  a  thousand  years  the 
human  mind  did  little  else  but  mark  time.  When 
a  man  kneels  down  and  says  that  he  wishes  only  to 
think  what  the  church  thinks  and  believe  only  what 
the  church  believes,  all  desire  for  original  research 
is  taken  from  him  and  he  no  longer  can  be  a  factor 
in  the  process  of  evolution.  All  he  can  do  is  to  con- 
serve the  past.  Organizations,  political  or  re- 
ligious, never  think.  They  have  no  organ  for  think- 
ing. All  they  do  is  to  memorize  thought.  They 
take  the  words  of  the  wise  and  formulate  them  into 
dogmas  and  then  they  repeat  the  dogmas  over  and 
over  and  thus  make  ancient  wisdom  the  master  of 
all  time. 

Not  only  has  this  principle   of  authority  been 
exerted  in  the  realm  of  intelligence  and  of  the  spirit, 


WORKING-CLASS  RELIGION  219 

but  it  has  also  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  eco- 
nomic life.  During  the  period  of  the  supremacy  of 
organized  Christianity  in  Western  Europe  the  con- 
dition of  mankind  was  that  of  status.  Each  had 
his  and  her  place  assigned  by  divine  decree.  To 
attempt  to  leave  that  place  was  desertion.  It  was 
to  the  advantage  of  the  Western  World  during  the 
long  chaotic  period  that  followed  the  downfall  of 
the  Roman  order  that  this  principle  of  authority 
should  have  been  taught  and  enforced.  We  owe  a 
debt  of  gratitude  to  the  Catholic  Church,  that  con- 
dones many  of  her  faults,  because  she  was  the 
schoolmistress  of  our  unruly  youth.  Her  dogma 
was  an  instrument  of  education.  It  gave  to  men 
a  unified  conception  of  the  world  in  which  they 
lived.  Unavoidably  with  that  dogma  was  asso- 
ciated the  ethic  of  Jesus,  and  the  Christian  church 
has  never  been  able  to  leave  the  moral  teaching 
of  Jesus  altogether  out  of  view.  But  it  could  and 
it  did  subordinate  that  ethical  teaching  to  its  own 
intellectual  and  political  conceptions.  Creed  took 
the  place  of  gospel,  and  the  church  was  organized 
for  purposes  of  government  rather  than  for  the 
duty  of  teaching.  It  did  not  say,  with  Jesus: 
"  Follow  me  " ;  it  said :  "  Obey  me !  " 

In  the  exercise  of  its  teaching  office  the  Church 
fell  into  the  snare  that  always  besets  the  school- 
master.    It  grew  to  believe  in  and  finally  to  assert 


220       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

the  infallibility  of  its  teaching  body.  In  the  doc- 
trine of  papal  infallibility  proclaimed  by  the  Coun- 
cil of  the  Vatican  of  1870,  the  Catholic  Church 
having  raised  this  doctrine  to  the  dignity  of  an 
article  of  faith,  bound  itself  irrevocably  to  the  past. 
It  gave  finality  to  the  decrees  of  the  popes.  No 
one  could  go  beyond  the  word  of  the  pope  in  faith 
or  morals  without  losing  his  right  to  Christian 
communion.  As  faith  and  morals  cover  the  whole 
range  of  human  endeavor,  this  doctrine  of  the 
Church  deprived  the  Catholic  Christian  of  freedom 
of  thought  and  freedom  of  action. 

In  a  feebler  way  the  assertion  on  the  part  of  the 
Protestant  Churches  of  the  infallibility  and  suffi- 
ciency of  Holy  Scripture  limits  the  rights  of  the 
loyal  Protestant  to  do  his  thinking  and  his  speak- 
ing except  in  subjection  to  a  power  external  to  his 
own  mind.  The  church,  both  Catholic  and  Prot- 
estant, is  committed  to  the  dogma  of  authority ;  and 
authority  other  than  the  authority  of  truth  is  the 
enemy  of  thought! 

The  church  because  of  this  dogma  has  expelled 
from  its  Communion  the  free-thinking  man  of  the 
modern  world.  It  can  no  longer  exercise  authority 
over  the  intelligence  of  man  because  that  intelli- 
gence has  withdrawn  itself  from  its  jurisdiction. 
Its  only  hope  now  lies  in  keeping  its  hold  upon  the 
unthinking  masses  of  mankind  in  both  the  upper 


WORKING-CLASS  RELIGION  221 

and  the  lower  classes.  Its  membership,  to-day,  is 
very  largely  made  up  of  the  rich  who  dare  not 
think,  and  the  poor  who  cannot  think.  Anything 
that  disturbs  the  mind  of  the  people  is  a  danger  to 
present-day  religious  organizations. 

The  ecclesiastical  body  is  opposing  the  social 
movement  among  the  working-people,  not  so  much 
because  the  fundamentals  of  socialism  are  antag- 
onistic to  the  fundamentals  of  the  gospel  of  Christ, 
for  between  these  there  is  no  necessary  conflict, 
but  because  this  movement  originated  in  minds 
outside  the  church.  The  very  agitation,  regardless 
of  the  content  of  that  agitation,  is  dangerous  to 
the  peace  and  even  to  the  existence  of  the  present 
ecclesiastical  establishment.  The  religious  organi- 
zation is  falling  back  into  the  very  citadel  of  au- 
thority. It  is  asserting  the  old  dogma  with  more 
than  ancient  determination.  It  is  making  man  sub- 
ject to  a  God  who  has  delegated  his  authority  to  a 
given  organization  and  only  in  obedience  to  that 
organization  can  man  hope  for  either  temporal  or 
eternal  salvation. 

This  conflict  between  the  working-class  move- 
ment and  organized  religion  is  an  irrepressible 
conflict.  It  is  a  conflict  of  ideas.  Organized  re- 
ligion claims  the  right  to  regulate  the  lives  of  men, 
to  tell  men  what  to  think  and  what  to  do.  For  a 
thousand  years  this  right  was  admitted.     Even  to 


222       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-GLASS 

the  present  day  it  has  the  consent  of  a  very  large 
element  of  living  men  and  women;  and  the  world 
is  as  it  is.  Human  misery  exposes  itself  on  every 
side.  What  is  now  seen  to  be  curable  poverty  is 
destroying  its  millions  and  its  tens  of  millions. 
The  working-class  is  fainting  under  burdens  which 
this  religious  organization  will  not  lift  with  one  of 
its  fingers.  It  has  built  marvelous  temples  for  its 
gods,  magnificent  palaces  for  its  bishops,  commodi- 
ous houses  for  its  clergy,  and  it  has  left  the  poor 
of  the  people  to  herd  in  hovels,  to  sleep  on  the 
ground  and  under  the  arches  of  the  bridges  of  the 
Thames.  It  has  allowed  this  great  modern  system 
of  labor-exploitation  to  grow  up  without  a  word  of 
protest.  By  the  working-class  it  is  held,  and  that 
justly,  responsible  for  things  as  they  are,  and  the 
thinking  element  of  the  working-class  is  to-day  in 
rebellion  against  the  whole  system  of  which  or- 
ganized religion  is  the  protector  and  beneficiary. 

The  working-man  cannot  find  the  God  of  the 
churches  in  the  workshop.  This  divinity  never 
visits  the  haunts  of  labor,  and  apparently  has  no 
concern  with  what  is  going  on  in  the  great  world 
of  industry.  The  conception  of  the  deity  which  is 
taught  by  the  clergy  has  no  place  in  the  minds  of 
the  thinking  portion  of  the  common  people.  The 
working-man,  however,  is  not  without  a  God,  or 
at  least  that  which  answers  to  the  call  for  a  God  in 


WORKING-CLASS  RELIGION  223 

the  soul  of  man.  He  is  during  every  instant  of  his 
working-life  in  the  presence  of  a  Force  which  con- 
trols his  every  action.  He  and  that  Force  are 
working  together  to  accomplish  common  tasks. 
Without  that  Power  he  is  nothing.  Allied  with 
that  Power  he  has  the  strength  of  a  universe.  He 
does  not  find  in  the  Force  with  which  he  is  dealing 
those  attributes  of  deity  which  are  ascribed  to  Him 
by  the  professors  of  theology.  The  deity  of  or- 
ganized religion  is  a  personal  Force  having  regard 
to  the  actions  of  men  and  judging  these  actions 
upon  a  moral  basis,  and  visiting  upon  them  their 
proper  reward  or  penalty. 

The  God  of  the  working-man  is  impersonal  and 
has  no  regard  for  the  moral  nature  of  man.  It 
will  work  with  a  bad  man  as  efficiently  as  with  a 
good  man.  As  long  as  its  fellow-worker  is  obedi- 
ent to  its  nature,  this  Force  will  assist  him  in  the 
accomplishment  of  his  task.  But  let  him  err  ever 
so  little  in  the  direction  of  this  Force,  and  it  will 
kill  him  without  mercy  and  condemn  his  wife  and 
his  children,  if  he  have  any,  to  a  life  of  destitution. 
The  Force  with  which  the  working-man  has  to  do 
is  best  described  by  the  first  article  of  religion  in 
the  English  Prayer  Book.  It  is  a  God  without 
body,  parts,  or  passions.  It  is  resident  in  all 
things,  accomplishing  its  ends  and  dealing  impar- 
tially with  all,  having  regard  simply  to  the  perfec- 


224      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

tion  of  the  whole.  When  a  working-man  whose 
mind  has  been  trained  by  this  constant  dealing 
with  the  great  facts  of  nature  enters  one  of  our 
churches  and  listens  to  the  descriptions  that  are 
given  there  of  the  Godhead,  he  is  unable  to  accept, 
because  he  cannot  understand.  The  gulf  between 
the  formal  and  the  actual  religion  of  the  people  is 
to-day  so  great  that  it  is  impossible  any  longer  to 
bridge  it.  The  clergy  and  the  working-people  in- 
habit different  planets.  They  can  no  more  influ- 
ence each  other  than  can  the  inhabitants  of  Mars 
affect  the  soul  and  mind  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Earth. 

The  churches  are  still  powerful  because  they  are 
the  custodians  of  the  ethical  teachings  of  Isaiah 
and  Jesus  and  more  because  they  are  the  refuge  of 
a  vast  number  of  people  to  whom  authority  in  mat- 
ters religious  is  a  necessity ;  who  still  live  in  the 
ancient  and  medieval  world  of  myth  and  legend 
and  have  not  yet  assimilated  the  modern  conception 
of  the  universe. 

The  church  still  reigns  in  the  region  of  emotion- 
alism and  transcendentalism.  Millions  upon  mil- 
lions still  take  from  the  church  their  thoughts  of 
God,  of  heaven  and  hell.  Millions  upon  millions 
still  find  emotional  satisfaction  in  the  worship  of 
the  Church.  But  it  is  only  when  in  the  church 
that  these  thoughts  and  emotions  are  active. 


WOEKIXG-CLASS  EELIGION  225 

In  the  workaday  world  man  has  overwhelming 
evidence  contradicting  the  teaching  of  his  church. 
In  church  he  hears  of  a  loving,  merciful  Father, 
who  has  regard  to  his  children  and  who  is  both 
willing  and  able  to  deliver  his  beloved  from  the 
hand  of  the  spoiler.  During  six  days  in  the  week 
in  the  mill  he  finds  no  evidence  of  such  a  presence. 
The  mill-wheels  turn  swiftly  and  if  by  chance  a  boy 
or  a  girl  should  come  too  near  the  belt,  he  or  she 
is  grasped  by  that  belt  and  hurled  to  destruction 
and  no  power  from  heaven  comes  down  to  avert 
this  calamity.  Nor  is  it  only  in  the  occasional  mis- 
fortunes of  his  work  that  man  finds  the  absence  of 
this  intervening  power.  The  daily  grind  of  his 
life,  which  robs  him  of  his  youth,  which  weakens 
his  manhood,  which  cripples  his  age,  goes  on  relent- 
lessly day  after  day,  and  he  and  the  like  of  him  are 
consumed  as  a  sacrifice  by  this  impersonal  Force 
of  industry.  The  teaching  of  organized  religion 
that  the  present  world  is  as  it  is  because  of  the 
decree  of  a  divine  being,  cannot  be  accepted  by  the 
working-class  without  some  qualification. 

The  difference  existing  between  the  wTorking-man 
and  the  theologian  is  radical.  They  have  diamet- 
rically opposite  conceptions  of  the  origin  of  the 
universe.  The  church  holds  to  the  creationist 
theory.  The  working-man  is  an  evolutionist.  The 
church  believes  that  things  were  made  at  first  per- 


226       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

feet  and  have  gone  backward,  the  working-man  be 
lieves  that  things  were  always  imperfect,  always  in 
the  making  and  are  going  forward.  The  church 
believes  that  a  power  outside  the  world  interferes 
at  times  for  purposes  of  readjustment,  that  the  uni- 
verse is  a  watch  wound  up  by  its  maker  and  its 
owner.  The  working-man  believes  in  the  great 
aphorism  of  evolution  that  in  the  living  world  there 
is  a  constant  progress  from  lower  to  higher  forms 
by  means  of  fixed  laws  and  resident  forces.  The 
working-man's  deity  is  the  great  worker  of  the  uni- 
verse. That  Force  with  which  the  worker  deals  is 
constant,  uniform,  and  relentless.  When  he  works 
with  this  Force,  the  workman  accomplishes  that 
which  is  for  the  welfare  of  himself  and  of  the  whole 
order  in  which  he  lives.  When  he  departs  in  the 
least  from  the  law  or  custom  which  resides  in  the 
Force,  then  calamity  comes  upon  him.  These  two 
conceptions  have  given  rise  to  different  modes  of 
expressing  the  life  of  religion.  When  the  church 
wishes  to  do  anything,  it  prays  —  it  asks  God  to 
do  this  thing  for  it.  When  the  working-class  re- 
ligion desires  to  obtain  a  given  result,  it  investi- 
gates; and  when  its  investigation  points  the  way, 
it  follows  and  it  receives  the  answer  to  its  investi- 
gation in  the  result  which  it  obtains.  It  is  the  con- 
stant cry  of  the  church  that  the  class-conscious 
working-man    is    irreligious    and    atheistic.     The 


WORKING-CLASS  RELIGION  227 

same  cry  was  uttered  against  Socrates  by  the 
Athenians  and  against  St.  Peter  by  the  Romans. 
The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  these  two,  the  work- 
ing-man and  the  clergyman,  are  holding  to  different 
Gods.  The  God  of  the  clergyman  is  metaphysical. 
The  God  of  the  working-man  is  experimental.  The 
clergyman  says :  "  Thus,  according  to  my  way  of 
thinking,  God  ought  to  be."  The  working-man 
says :  "  Thus,  according  to  my  experience,  do  I 
find  that  God  actually  is."  The  working-man  has 
the  advantage  of  the  clergyman,  because  his  method 
accomplishes  results.  The  modern  world  is  his 
creation.  In  former  times,  sickness  was  considered 
a  visitation  from  God.  It  is  now  known  to  be  the 
work  of  a  nasty  little  germ.  While  the  clergyman 
is  on  his  knees  praying  to  his  God  to  take  away  this 
evil,  the  working-man,  in  the  person  of  an  energetic 
physician,  is  on  a  chase  for  the  flea  or  the  mosquito 
that  carries  the  plague.  So  great  is  the  advantage 
to  mankind  of  the  modern  conception  of  religion, 
that  it  is  quite  impossible  for  men  ever  to  return 
to  their  former  way  of  thinking.  They  may  for  a 
time  cling  to  ancient  conceptions;  but  as  these  can 
never  be  put  into  practice  in  daily  life,  they  must 
die  for  want  of  exercise.  The  religion  of  the  work- 
ing-class is,  and  cannot  help  being,  the  vital  re- 
ligion of  the  present  and  the  growing  religion  of 
the  future.     The  controversy  between  the  old  and 


228       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

the  new  is  settled.  We  are,  so  far  as  this  matter  is 
concerned,  no  longer  in  a  stage  of  transition;  we 
have  arrived. 

The  working-class  conception  of  divinity  differs 
from  the  ecclesiastical  in  that  the  latter  centralizes 
power  and  the  former  distributes  power.  The  God 
of  the  ancient  religion  was  seated  on  his  throne 
executing  his  will  by  agents.  The  deity  of  the 
modern  religion  is  at  every  point,  acting  immedi- 
ately. The  religion  of  the  church  is  monarchical, 
the  religion  of  the  working-class  is  democratic. 
According  to  this  religion,  the  universe  is  governed 
by  itself,  and  every  atom  in  the  universe  has  a  vote. 
When  Newton  proclaimed  his  discovery  of  the  facts 
of  gravitation,  he  democratized  the  world.  He  said 
that  every  particle  of  matter  attracts  every  other 
particle  of  matter,  according  to  a  certain  formula. 
Thus  each  particle  of  matter  has  its  voice  in  the 
control  of  the  whole.  Power  is  concentrated  in  the 
great  masses,  such  as  the  planets  and  the  sun ;  but 
it  is  also  diffused  and  is  resident  in  every  particle 
of  the  mass.  It  is  this  conception  that  has  caused 
the  working-class  to  withdraw  from  the  great  or- 
ganized religions.  The  concentration  of  power  in 
centers  and  the  refusal  of  the  central  authority  to 
grant  home-rule  to  the  outlying  region  is  the  cause 
of  disruption  of  organized  Christianity.  The 
working-man  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  if  he 


WOKKIXG-CLASS  RELIGION  229 

is  to  better  his  own  condition,  he  cannot  wait  any 
longer  for  some  power  from  outside  to  do  this  work 
of  betterment  for  him.  He  must  do  it  himself. 
Nor  can  he  submit  his  plans  and  purposes  to  the 
control  of  an  outside  power.  He  must  form  his 
own  plans  and  he  must  carry  them  out.  By  a 
process  of  choice  and  elimination  he  must,  by  ex- 
periment, find  what  is  best  to  be  done  and  then  do 
it.  The  church  in  its  official  organization,  having 
withdrawn  itself  entirely  from  the  world  of  indus- 
try, is  suffering  the  consequences  of  that  with- 
drawal. It  is  ignorant  of  this  great  region  of  hu- 
man life,  and  all  its  efforts  to  interfere  are  simply 
an  irritation  to  the  working-class  and  fatal  to  its 
own  interests.  In  the  days  when  the  clergy  did 
govern  the  world,  the  clergy  were  the  world.  They 
were  its  plowmen  and  its  herdsmen.  They  were 
its  superintendents  and  having  thus  first  hand 
knowledge  of  what  was  going  on,  these  churchmen, 
who  were  also  world-men,  were  able  wisely  to  di- 
rect the  course  of  affairs.  The  gradual  withdrawal 
of  the  clergy  from  the  secular  into  the  spiritual  has 
given  them  the  exclusive  management  of  the  spir- 
itual and  lost  to  them  altogether  the  management 
of  the  secular.  Neither  the  scientific  nor  the  in- 
dustrial world  will  ever  again  come  under  ecclesi- 
astical control.  The  working-man  will  go  his  way, 
will  fight  his  battle,  will  win  his  victory  without 


230      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

the  aid  of  the  church  and  in  spite  of  its  opposi- 
tion. 

In  using  the  word  Church  we  have  so  far  had 
in  mind  only  that  great  organization  in  the  West- 
ern World  to  which  the  name  church  properly  ap- 
plies. The  other  so-called  churches  hardly  come 
within  the  range  of  our  argument,  because  their  in- 
fluence at  present  is  so  slight  that  what  they  say 
or  do  is  of  minor  importance.  The  State  churches 
of  Northern  Germany,  Scandinavia,  and  England 
have  ceased,  except  in  the  realm  of  emotion  and 
transcendentalism,  to  influence  the  life  of  those 
countries.  Having  lost  the  note  of  authority,  they 
are  not  able  to  command  in  the  name  of  the  Lord ; 
they  can  only  give  advice,  and  their  advice  is  worth 
just  what  the  personality  of  each  individual  attrib- 
utes to  it.  It  is  strange  that  this  fact,  which  is  so 
evident,  is  so  constantly  overlooked.  The  pious  and 
gifted  author  of  Christianity  and  the  Social  Crisis  * 
uses  in  his  book  the  word  church  so  indefinitely 
as  to  vitiate  his  argument.  He  is  expecting  that 
"  the  church  "  is  to  do  the  work  of  social  recon- 
struction, but  he  does  not  define  what  church  is  to 
undertake  this  task.  He  cannot  expect  the  work 
to  be  done  by  the  Eoman  Catholic  Church,  because 
he  looks  upon  that  church  as  a  corrupt  body,  de- 

i  Christianity  and  the' Social  Crisis,  by  Walter  Rauschenbusch. 


WORKING-CLASS  RELIGION  231 

prived  more  or  less  of  the  presence  of  God.  Neither 
can  he  hope  that  any  one  of  the  various  non-Cath- 
olic bodies  can  do  this  thing,  because  they,  by  rea- 
son of  their  divisions,  are  so  crippled  that  they 
have  all  that  they  can  do  to  take  care  of  themselves. 
The  working-class  has  ceased  to  take  these  bodies 
into  consideration.  It  welcomes  individual  clergy- 
men to  the  ranks  of  its  thinkers  and  workers,  but 
it  does  not  hope  nor  care  for  the  assistance  of  the 
organic  bodies  as  such.  The  working-man  is  wise 
enough  to  know  that  you  cannot  put  new  wine  into 
old  wine-skins  and  that  it  is  hardly  worth  while 
to  patch  an  old  garment  with  new  cloth. 

Working-class  religion  can  be  stated  definitely 
in  the  terms  of  evolution.  It  holds  to  a  belief  in  a 
world  governed  by  fixed  habits  and  moved  by  resi- 
dent forces.  It  believes  that  change  is  the  law  of 
life.  It  believes  that  society  is  in  the  process  of 
evolution,  compelled  to  change  its  structure,  to 
revolutionize  its  government,  and  that  at  the  pres- 
ent this  evolutionary-revolutionary  process  is  bring- 
ing the  working-class  into  power.  In  the  language 
of  the  old  theology,  the  working-man  believes  that 
whatever  God  there  be  is  in  man  reconciling  the 
world  to  himself.  The  working-man  does  not  seek 
to  obtain  the  favor  of  his  God  by  any  other  than 
the  way  of  obedience.     He  believes  that  only  by 


232       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

experiment  can  even  the  divine  power  find  the  right 
way  and  hence  he  is  himself  yielding  to  that  experi- 
mental process  and  he  is  willing  to  await  the  result. 
The  working-man  has  little  or  no  patience  with  the 
great  waste  of  human  effort  that  is  expended  to 
secure  the  favor  of  God  by  means  of  what  is  called 
public  worship.  His  God  does  not  dwell  in  tem- 
ples made  with  hands.  He  believes  that  God  needs 
no  housing  and  that  men  do !  He  would  if  he  could 
take  the  houses  of  God  and  make  them  habitations 
for  men,  just  as  Oliver  Cromwell  took  the  great 
waste  places  of  Yorkminster  and  made  them  a  shel- 
ter for  his  yeomen  and  their  horses.  He  would 
take  the  needle-work  which  now  adorns  the  backs 
of  the  priests  and  make  beautiful  the  person  of 
the  working-girl  and  working-woman.  He  holds 
with  the  great  thinker  who  wrote  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel, that  God  is  not  worshiped  in  Jerusalem  nor 
upon  Mt.  Gerizim,  but  that  God  is  worshiped  in 
every  honest  thought,  in  every  true  stroke  of  work, 
in  every  act  of  social  justice,  and  that  by  these  is 
the  world  of  man  perfected.  The  working-man  is 
angered  by  what  he  considers  this  waste  of  human 
effort  in  the  various  religious  organizations  as  they 
now  exist.  His  condemnation  of  them  is  economic. 
They  do  not  pay  for  their  keep.  And  he  feels  that 
wrhen  the  forces  that  are  now  employed  to  maintain 
them  in  existence  are  released,  that  these  forces  can 


WORKING-CLASS  RELIGION  233 

and  will  be  used  to  do  the  real  work  of  the  world 
that  is  waiting  so  sadly  to  be  done. 

The  leaders  of  the  various  religious  bodies  can- 
not afford  longer  to  be  ignorant  of  this  attitude  of 
the  more  intelligent  of  the  working-class.  Their 
thoughts  are  shared  by  thinking  men  in  general  and 
the  solution  of  the  religious  problem  cannot  be  long 
delayed.  The  day  of  judgment  is  at  hand.  Men 
are  even  now  being  compelled  to  choose  between 
the  conception  of  the  God  of  theology  and  the  con- 
ception of  God  that  has  been  evolved  in  the  scien- 
tific and  industrial  worlds.  These  conceptions 
have  much  in  common ;  but  their  basic  notions  are 
so  antagonistic  that  the  one  must  displace  the 
other.  The  great  Catholic  organization  has  delib- 
erately chosen  to  hold  fast  to  its  own  ancient  con- 
ception of  God  and  the  world.  The  modern  mind 
has  rejected  this  conception.  This  conflict  must 
go  on  until  the  world  at  last  is  organized  by  the  one 
or  the  other.  The  outcome  is  not  uncertain.  The 
modern  conception  of  the  world  is  the  living,  grow- 
ing conception.  The  ancient  conception  is  the  dy- 
ing thought.  We  can  stand  with  reverence  at  its 
death-bed,  but  we  cannot  even  for  its  own  sake 
desire  its  longer  life.  Death-bed  agonies  are  not 
pleasant.  We  may  deplore,  but  we  cannot  dispute 
the  fact  that  it  is  the  part  of  the  old  to  die,  of  the 
young  to  live.     The  working-class  religion  is  still 


234      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

in  its  infancy.  It  has  all  the  inefficiency  and 
crudeness  of  the  new-born,  but  in  it  is  the  promise 
of  the  future. 

There  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun,  and  this 
which  is  called  the  new  religion  is,  in  reality,  sim- 
ply the  reinstatement  of  the  old.  The  working- 
man  is  in  accord  with  the  great  prophets  of  Israel 
and  especially  with  Isaiah  and  Jesus  of  Nazareth ; 
those  two  fundamental  thinkers  in  all  the  concerns 
of  the  spiritual  and  social  life  of  man.  The  funda- 
mental of  the  working-class  religion  is  that  man  is 
the  savior  of  man.  He  repeats  the  cry  of  Isaiah, 
"  A  man  shall  be  an  hiding-place  from  the  tempests, 
a  covert  from  the  wind  and  the  shadow  of  a  great 
rock  in  a  weary  land."  He  is  in  accord  with  Jesus 
in  the  declaration  that  all  judgment  concerning 
man  is  given  to  the  Son  of  Man.  The  working-man 
does  not  identify  the  Son  of  Man  with  any  historic 
person,  but  with  man  as  man.  In  his  judgment 
the  great  error  of  current  theology  is  that  it  has 
made  the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation  historic  in- 
stead of  cosmic.  The  saying  "  God  is  in  Christ  " 
is  to  him  not  untrue,  but  insufficient.  He  asserts 
that  God  is  in  man,  that  the  creative  force  has  been 
making  itself  felt  from  the  beginning  of  life  down 
to  the  present.  At  no  point  in  history  can  it  be 
said  that  here  God  began  his  work.  Whatever  God 
there  be,  He  has  been  always  and  He  will  be  always. 


WORKING-CLASS  RELIGION  235 

He  is  ever  present;  or  if  we  prefer  as  some  do  the 
impersonal,  It  has  been,  is,  and  will  be.  The  con- 
clusion which  the  working-man  draws  from  this 
religious  postulate  is  that  the  working-man  must 
save  the  working-man.  It  is  by  the  forces  present 
in  the  working-class,  that  the  working-class  is  to  be 
delivered  from  the  evils  that  afflict  it.  Universal- 
ism  is  taking  the  place  of  both  Unitarianism  and 
Trinitarianism,  as  the  fundamental  conception  of 
religion.  Instead  of  saying:  "  There  is  one  God," 
we  are  beginning  to  assert  that  there  be  gods  many 
and  lords  many,  and  that  these  are  all  of  the  sub- 
stance of  the  godhead.  The  working-man  does  not 
think  theologically,  but  if  he  did,  he  would  express 
himself  in  the  following  manner.  He  would  as- 
sert the  divinity  of  the  force  with  which  he  works 
in  the  factory  and  would  declare  that  he  himself 
is  an  incarnation  of  that  force.  He  does  not,  will 
not,  and  cannot  separate  God  from  His  world,  and 
find  between  these  two  some  accidental  historical 
nexus.  A  God  far  away,  a  God  that  sleeps,  a  God 
that  needs  to  be  called  upon,  has  no  place  in  the 
thought  of  the  thinking  working-man.  He  has 
ceased  to  use  the  word  God,  because  that  word  im- 
plies so  much  that  he  has  rejected.  He  will  take 
up  the  word  again  when  the  word  is  emptied  of 
its  false  meanings  and  is  made  to  express  the  living 
thought  of  the  living  age. 


WORKING-CLASS   MORALITY 

FRIEDEICH  WILHELM  NIETZSCHE  star- 
tled and  scandalized  his  generation  by  the  as- 
sertion that  Christian  morality  was  a  slave  mo- 
rality. He  scorned  Christianity  on  this  account. 
He  declared  that  the  Christian  religion  was  hin- 
dering instead  of  helping  the  evolution  of  man  to 
a  higher  plane.  He  declared  that  the  virtues 
proper  to  man  were  the  direct  opposite  of  those  in- 
culcated by  Christian  teaching.  He  said  the  only 
man  is  the  super-man,  the  man  who  thinks  and  as- 
serts .  his  own  superiority,  who  without  question 
compels  weaker  men  to  serve  him.  The  master  of 
the  slave  was  the  ideal  of  Nietzsche.  This  philos- 
ophy of  Nietzsche  brought  down  upon  him  the  con- 
demnation of  the  orthodox,  but  so  far  as  the  Chris- 
tian morality  is  concerned,  the  German  philosopher 
has  undoubtedly  the  right  of  it.  The  virtues  of  the 
Christian  are  the  peculiar  virtues  of  the  slave. 
Christianity  had  its  origin  in  the  subject  popula- 
tion of  the  ancient  world,  and  it  was  condemned  by 
philosophers  of  olden  times  for  the  very  reason  that 

236 


WORKING-CLASS  MORALITY  237 

it  is  condemned  by  the  philosopher  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  an  absolute  morality. 
Morals  are  only  the  habits  and  customs  that  are  ap- 
propriate to  given  conditions  in  life.  Morality  is 
like  the  chameleon  changing  its  color  as  it  changes 
its  place.  The  border-line  between  two  countries 
is  the  boundary  of  two  moralities.  Not  only  is 
morality  geographically  governed  but  it  is  also  de- 
termined by  conditions  of  class.  What  is  emi- 
nently proper  in  the  master  is  immoral  in  the  slave. 
We  have  to-day  two  distinct  moralities,  striving 
for  the  control  of  our  modern  world.  The  morality 
which  we  preach  is  the  morality  of  the  subject 
class.  The  morality  which  we  practise,  when  we 
can,  is  the  morality  of  the  master  class. 

Master-class  morality  commends  self-assertion, 
self-aggrandizement,  pride  of  place,  acquisitiveness, 
domination ;  it  awards  the  highest  honor  to  the  man 
who  is  most  successful  in  reducing  his  fellow-man 
to  an  inferiority.  The  highest  type  of  this  morality 
is  the  conqueror,  who  by  his  genius  subjugates 
whole  nations  to  his  sway.  In  our  modern  world, 
the  successful  business  man  is  the  exponent  of  this 
moral  system.  He  commends  himself  and  is  com- 
mended by  others  just  in  proportion  to  the  ability 
which  he  has  exercised  his  powers  in  the  work  of 
subduing  mankind  and  the  success  which  has  at- 


238      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

tended  his  efforts.  In  Ms  living  the  master  man  is 
profuse,  extravagant,  he  is  a  great  spender.  Lux- 
ury is  to  him  necessity.  It  is  not  enough  for  him 
to  live  in  a  house,  he  must  build  for  himself  a  pal- 
ace. He  is  not  satisfied  to  be  clothed  in  woolen, 
he  must  have  the  richest  of  velvets  and  furs.  His 
women  are  used  for  the  purpose  of  manifesting  his 
power  and  glory.  He  clothes  his  woman  in  the 
richest  of  silks  and  hangs  priceless  gems  about  her 
neck,  in  order  that  the  world  may  see  and  know 
how  great  and  rich  he  is.  Wherever  he  appears, 
he  expects  to  receive  the  obeisance  of  the  people. 
They  must  bow  down  before  him.  Homage  is  his 
right.  He  wears  the  crown  and  bears  the  scepter. 
These  virtues  of  the  master  class  have  been  emu- 
lated by  all  mankind.  The  slave  desires  to  escape 
from  his  slavery  in  order  that  he  may  take  his  place 
among  the  rulers  of  the  world.  And  with  every 
gradation  of  society,  the  superior  practises  the  su- 
perior morality  in  his  relation  to  the  inferior.  The 
man  and  the  slave  always  stand  in  this  moral  re- 
lation. The  man  is  haughty,  the  slave  is  cringing. 
The  man  is  condescending,  the  slave  is  a  suppliant. 
The  man  is  independent,  the  slave  dependent. 

The  Christian  religion,  in  common  with  the 
Buddhistic  and  all  other  salvation-religions,  had  its 
origin  in  the  depressed  classes  of  the  world  at  the 
time  of  its  origin.     It  was  the  working-class  to 


WORKING-CLASS  MORALITY  239 

whom  and  by  whom  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian 
religion  were  preached  and  received.  Its  founder 
was  a  provincial  carpenter;  its  first  leaders  were 
fishermen.  It  was  not  until  it  had  acquired  mo- 
mentum that  it  secured  the  adhesion  and  the  serv- 
ices of  the  higher  classes,  and  when  a  man  of  the 
upper  class  did  join  its  ranks  he  had  to  leave  his 
rank  behind  him.  By  the  very  fact  of  becoming  a 
Christian,  he  became  a  member  of  the  outcast,  de- 
graded portion  of  the  population.  In  this  class 
the  virtues  of  the  slave  were  second  nature.  Obedi- 
ence, first  and  last,  was  of  the  essence  of  morality. 
Submission,  deprivation,  thrift,  industry,  comrade- 
ship, long  suffering,  patience,  hope,  were  all  en- 
gendered by  the  conditions  that  prevailed  in  the 
subject  population  of  the  ancient  world. 

Those  qualities  of  human  nature  to  which  the 
word  human  properly  applies  are  all  of  slave  origin. 
It  was  and  it  is  among  the  poor  of  the  earth  that 
we  find  that  sympathy  for  suffering,  that  mutual 
helpfulness  by  which  men  are  able  to  bear  one  an- 
other's burdens,  that  submission  to  hard  conditions 
which  causes  men  to  continue  in  painful  and  dis- 
agreeable tasks.  Working-class  morality  has  been 
up  to  the  present  time  a  necessity  of  the  working- 
man's  condition.  Without  these  qualities  he  could 
not  have  been  a  working-man.  He  would  have  cast 
off  his  yoke  and  asserted  his  freedom.     The  more 


240       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

powerful  of  the  working-class  are  constantly  doing 
this,  are  shedding  the  morality  of  the  working-class 
and  clothing  themselves  with  the  moralities  of  the 
master  class.  Because  of  this  the  working-class 
has  found  it  hard  to  escape  from  itself.  It  is  con- 
tinually losing  the  men  who  should  lead  it  out  of 
its  slavery  into  the  promised  land.  These  men 
when  they  have  at  once  escaped  from  their  class 
condition  become  the  most  tyrannical  of  the  master 
class.  There  is  no  one  so  cruel  to  the  slave  as  the 
man  who  himself  has  been  a  slave. 

The  master  class  have  been  careful  to  teach  work- 
ing-class morality  to  working-people,  because  the 
safety  of  the  master  class  depends  upon  the  subject 
class's  belief  in  the  rightfulness  of  its  subjection. 
And  so  we  have  preached  from  our  pulpits  and 
taught  in  our  schools  the  virtue  of  humility,  of 
thrift,  of  carefulness,  of  industry,  and  above  all 
things,  of  obedience.  The  youth  of  our  working- 
class  are  drilled  in  these  precepts  by  the  greatest 
organization  for  teaching  which  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  The  Christian  virtues  are  taught  by  the 
Christian  church  and  the  people  are  expected  to 
practise  them,  but  in  the  organization  of  that 
church  as  in  the  organization  of  the  world  outside 
the  church,  these  virtues  are  impracticable,  except 
for  people  in  subjection.  The  rulers  of  the  church 
and  the  rulers  of  the  world  profess  these  virtues, 


WORKING-CLASS  MORALITY  241 

but  they  do  not  live  them,  because  they  cannot. 
The  master  class  can  no  more  practise  the  virtues 
of  the  subject  class  than  the  subject  class  can  prac- 
tise the  virtues  of  the  master  class.  All  talk  of  hu- 
mility on  the  part  of  a  King,  a  Pope,  or  a  Bishop, 
is  mere  talk.  When  a  Pope  is  carried  upon  the 
shoulders  of  men  amid  prostrate  people,  he  is  the 
most  perfect  manifestation  of  human  pride  that 
the  world  has  even  seen.  The  haughtiness  of  Bish- 
ops in  dealing  with  the  younger  and  lower  clergy 
is  proverbial. 

Profusion  in  expenditure  is  a  necessity  in  the 
higher  ranks  of  society.  All  that  is  required  of 
the  lower  classes  would,  if  practised  by  the  upper 
classes,  be  their  destruction.  The  consequence  is 
that  we  have  to-day  an  ironical  situation.  Our 
professed  religion  demands  of  us  a  way  of  life  which 
we  declare  to  be  impracticable.  We  are  taught 
by  our  great  religious  prophets  that  we  are  not  to 
lay  up  treasure  upon  earth.  We  bow  to  this  pre- 
cept but  declare  that  if  we  were  to  obey  it  we 
should  find  our  way  to  the  poor-house.  The  cen- 
tral doctrine  of  the  religion  that  is  preached  to  us 
is  that  we  shall  not  resist  evil.  Again  we  bow 
deferentially,  and  say  that  to  practise  this  doctrine 
would  be  to  dissolve  society,  and  we  proceed  at 
once  to  arm  ourselves  to  the  teeth,  to  establish  in- 
stitutions for  the  purpose  of  resisting  evil.     The 


242      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

policeman  with  bis  club  is  our  practical  answer  to 
the  doctrine  of  tbe  Nazarene.  It  has  been  said  that 
it  was  a  misfortune  that  Jesus  preached  to  the 
Western,  instead  of  to  the  Eastern,  World.  The 
reason  for  this  is  that  the  people  of  the  East,  hav- 
ing been  for  ages  a  subject  people,  were  ripe  for 
the  preaching  of  the  passive  virtues.  In  the  West, 
the  people  are  the  children  of  the  free  men  of  the 
woods  and  of  the  seas.  The  northern,  Germanic 
nations  accepted  Christianity  without  either  be- 
lieving or  understanding  it.  In  this  instance  the 
slave  converted  the  master,  and  the  history  of 
Christianity  in  Europe  is  the  history  of  the  vain 
effort  of  a  master  people  to  live  the  morality  of  a 
subject  people.  The  most  acquisitive,  avaricious, 
of  the  peoples  of  the  earth  profess  the  doctrine  of 
abstinence  and  detachment  from  the  world.  The 
most  violent  and  warlike  worship  the  Prince  of 
Peace.  They  who  declare  that  a  man  should  give 
more  quickly  than  he  should  receive  are  amassing 
fortunes  by  methods  of  legalized  and  unlegalized 
robbery.  This  contrast  between  theory  and  prac- 
tice makes  of  the  modern  world  a  mad-house.  Only 
in  Bedlam  can  people  profess  that  which  is  so  in- 
congruous to  their  real  thought  and  life. 

The  working-man  has  at  last  awakened  to  the 
fact  that  the  morality  which  has  been  taught  to  him 
by  his  teachers  is  not  profitable  to  him.     As  long 


WORKING-CLASS  MORALITY  243 

as  he  practises  that  morality  he  must  be  more  or 
less  a  slave.  If  he  is  to  obey,  he  must  have  a  mas- 
ter; and  if  obedience  is  without  limit,  then  that 
mastership  must  extend  over  all  his  life.  If  he  is 
to  bow  down  in  humility,  it  must  be  to  a  superior ; 
and  if  sufferance  and  obeisance  is  the  badge  of  all 
his  tribe,  then  any  effort  on  his  part  to  stand  up- 
right, to  assume  for  himself  those  qualities  which 
belong  to  his  superiors,  is  immoral,  and  he  is  to  be 
blamed  for  thus  imitating  those  who  are  above 
and  beyond  him.  If  he  is  to  be  saving,  then  the 
less  that  he  expends  upon  himself  out  of  the  prod- 
uct of  his  labor,  the  more  must  others  spend,  unless 
his  labor  is  to  glut  the  world  with  useless  produc- 
tion. If  he  adopts  a  generous  standard  of  living, 
he  is  violating  the  morality  of  his  class,  he  is  the 
scoff  and  the  sneer  of  the  upper  class.  If  he  prac- 
tises the  virtue  of  mutual  helpfulness,  if  he  organ- 
izes himself  into  associations  for  the  purpose  of 
bettering  the  condition  of  himself  and  his  fellow- 
workmen,  he  has  until  recent  times,  been  outlawed. 
The  working-man  has  come  at  last  to  believe  that 
if  he  is  to  save  himself  from  slavery  he  must  dis- 
card slave  morality  and  practise  master  morality. 
He  must  in  the  first  instance  be  master  of  himself. 
He  must  control  the  means  of  making  his  own  liv- 
ing, and  it  is  for  the  good  of  the  world  that  he 
should  spend  what  he  makes;  it  is  not  well  that 


244       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

others  should  dispense  what  he  earns.  Self-devel- 
opment demands  that  each  man  should  have  a  cer- 
tain pride  in  himself  and  in  his  own  accomplish- 
ment. Humility  is  a  virtue  of  value  only  to  the 
strong.  The  'umbleness  of  Uriah  Heep  is  a  vice. 
Thrift  is  very  well  when  thrift  brings  greater 
power ;  but  when  that  virtue  simply  means  greater 
exploitation,  then  thrift  is  a  vice.  The  Irish  ten- 
ant lost  the  habit  of  thriftiness  because  every  time 
he  made  a  saving,  that  saving  was  taken  away  from 
him  by  his  landlord.  When  one  class  is  subject  to 
another  class,  the  thrift  of  the  subject  class  only 
adds  to  the  wealth  of  the  master  class.  The  sub- 
ject class  is  compelled  to  live  on  little  in  order  that 
the  master  class  may  consume  without  limit.  These 
truths  are  now  apparent  to  the  thinking  working- 
man,  and  he  is  striving  to  throw  off  the  morality 
which  he  has  inherited  and  to  practise  a  morality 
which  he  sees  to  be  necessary  to  his  advancing  life 
in  the  world.  The  spirit  of  mastership  is  in  him. 
He  is  to-day  not  a  subject,  but  a  citizen.  He  has 
a  voice  and  a  vote  in  affairs  of  State.  The  upper 
classes  are  beginning  to  acknowledge  his  master- 
ship. On  or  about  election  time,  there  is  nothing 
too  good  for  the  working-man,  and  his  labor  is  held 
up  as  the  greatest  and  most  dignified  thing  in  the 
world.  Can  we  expect  that  this  new-born  sovereign 
shall  still  demean  himself  after  the  custom  of  the 


WORKING-CLASS  MORALITY  215 

slave?  The  only  salvation  for  society  to-day  is  that 
the  master  class  shall  practise  slave  morality  and 
the  slave  class  practise  the  master  morality.  It 
were  a  beautiful  thing  and  much  to  be  commended 
if  the  master  class,  professing  the  teachings  of  the 
Christian  religion,  were  to  begin  to  practise  Chris- 
tian morality.  If  the  men  of  power  were  to  say 
to  themselves  that  they  were  not  the  masters  but 
the  servants  of  the  people,  and  when  they  said  it 
mean  it;  if  they  who  were  possessed  of  properties 
were  to  declare  that  their  property  was  not  their 
own,  but  the  common  property  of  all  the  people; 
if  they  were  to  trust  themselves  to  the  future  and 
not  be  amassing  wealth  to  shield  themselves  and 
their  children  from  dependence  upon  the  future;  if 
they  were  to  descend  from  their  high  places  in  the 
industrial,  the  social,  and  the  political  world  and 
make  common  cause  with  the  lowest  of  their  breth- 
ren,—  then  that  vision  of  a  kingdom  or  order  of 
God  would,  so  far  as  the  upper  classes  are  con- 
cerned, begin  to  manifest  itself  in  the  presence  of 
the  angels. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  subject  classes  of  the 
world  to-day  begin  to  practise  the  virtues  of  the 
master  class,  if  they  refuse  any  longer  to  cringe; 
if  they  stand  upright  and  assert  the  full  dignity  of 
their  manhood;  if  they  would  rather  face  starva- 
tion than  the  loss  of  their  moral  independence;  if 


246       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

they  refuse  to  starve  themselves  and  their  children 
but  claim  for  themselves  a  full  portion  at  the  table 
of  life;  if,  instead  of  speaking  with  bated  breath, 
they  speak  boldly;  if  they  refuse  to  do  that  which 
their  conscience  declares  to  be  evil ;  if  in  their  lives 
they  develop  greatness  of  mind,  self-respect,  even 
self-assertion, —  then  present  miseries  will  begin  to 
vanish.  It  is  the  contentedness  of  the  poor  with 
poverty  that  is  the  abiding  cause  of  poverty.  When 
the  spirit  of  self  is  strong  enough  in  the  poor  to  stir 
up  the  poverty  stricken  classes  to  rebellion  against 
their  lot,  then  poverty  will  vanish.  In  the  struggle 
the  poor  may  be  exterminated;  but  in  their  death, 
poverty  will  die  with  them.  It  is  well  that  the  up- 
per classes  should  know  that  such  thoughts  as  these 
are  fermenting  to-day  in  the  hearts  of  the  working- 
people.  The  working-class  is  emerging  from  that 
age-long  contempt  in  which  it  has  been  held.  It 
is  beginning  to  respect  itself  and  it  is  demanding 
respect  from  others.  It  will  no  longer  devote  its 
energies  subserviently  to  the  interest  of  others.  It 
claims  the  right  to  work  in  its  own  interest.  The 
employing-class  can  no  longer  rely  upon  the  loyalty 
of  the  working-class  any  more  than  kings  can  rely 
upon  the  loyalty  of  the  subjects.  To-day  in  poli- 
tics the  same  man  is  both  subject  and  king.  The 
modern  man  refuses  politically  to  be  in  subjection 
to  any  other  man.     He  will  obey  only  laws  of  his 


WORKING-CLASS  MORALITY  247 

own  making  and  officers  of  his  own  choosing.  The 
same  principle  is  working  out  in  the  industrial 
world.  Men  are  no  longer  content  to  be  simply 
hands.  They  are  heads  and  they  will  not  have  their 
heads  cut  off  when  they  enter  the  factory  doors. 
The  denial  of  the  working-man  to  any  rights  of 
mastership  in  industry  is  causing  the  present  in- 
dustrial confusion  and  that  confusion  will  con- 
tinue until  the  rights  of  the  working-man  are  fully 
recognized  and  he  takes  his  proper  place  in  the  di- 
rection of  industrial  affairs.  At  present  the  work- 
ing-man is  exercising  his  higher  powers  by  and 
through  his  industrial  organizations.  The  trades 
unions  and  the  fraternal,  mutual-benefit  societies 
are  the  creation  of  the  working-class  and  are  an 
evidence  of  the  power  possessed  by  that  class  to 
organize  and  carry  on  great  enterprises.  The 
training  which  the  working-man  has  received  in 
these  organizations  has  made  it  possible  for  him  to 
enter  into  the  direction  of  the  industrial  affairs  of 
the  world.  He  can  do  this  only  through  the  re- 
organization of  industry  upon  a  democratic  basis. 
The  shop,  as  well  as  the  city,  must  be  in  the  con- 
trol of  those  who  live  and  work  in  it.  The  day  of 
autocracy  is  over,  the  day  of  democracy  has  come. 

The  morality  of  the  working-class  age  which  is 
now  approaching  will  revolutionize  many  of  our 
conceptions.     The   great  virtue   upon   which   our 


248      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

organized  religion  magnifies  itself  is  that  of  char- 
ity. Charity  not  in  the  sense  in  which  that  word 
is  used  by  Paul,  but  in  the  meaning  that  is  given 
to  it  by  the  modern  charity  organizations.  The 
modern  man  buys  his  way  into  the  kingdom  of  vir- 
tue by  giving  alms  to  the  worthy  poor,  and  by  sup- 
porting institutions  for  the  derelicts  of  humanity. 
When  such  an  one  seeks  to  justify  his  religion,  he 
points  to  the  hospital,  to  the  orphan-asylum,  to  the 
home  for  the  aged ;  and  in  these  he  finds  the  justifi- 
cation of  his  way  of  living.  Working-class  moral- 
ity has  for  all  this  not  only  contempt,  but  hatred. 
It  declares  that  this  charity  does  not  only  cover 
a  multitude  of  sins,  but  it  is  also  the  cloak  for  the 
vilest  injustice.  Working-class  morality  would,  if 
it  could,  make  forever  impossible  the  hospital,  other 
than  as  the  scientific  institution  for  the  treating  of 
disease,  to  which  all  sick  people  without  regard  to 
the  riches  or  poverty  of  the  patient  would  resort, 
and  in  which  there  would  be  no  respect  of  persons. 
He  would  abolish  the  orphan-asylum  and  in  its 
place  have  the  pensioned  mother,  he  would  burn  the 
home  for  the  aged  and  make  it  possible  for  every 
old  man  and  woman  to  live  under  his  own  vine  and 
his  own  fig-tree.  He  would  cut  off  the  opportuni- 
ties of  the  rich  to  benefit  the  poor  —  by  the  aboli- 
tion of  poverty.  He  would  transfer  the  surplus 
from  the  affluent  to  the  needy,  by  a  process  harm- 


WORKING-CLASS  MORALITY  249 

less  to  both.  By  means  of  income-tax  and  death- 
duties  he  would  dissipate  great  fortunes,  and  by 
the  wealth  thus  secured  give  steadier  employment 
and  shorter  hours  to  the  worker.  Lie  would  make 
use  of  the  instruments  of  government  to  prevent 
disease,  to  conserve  the  sources  of  natural  wealth, 
to  equalize  opportunity,  to  socialize  production  and 
distribution  and  so  make  unnecessary  this  outpour- 
ing of  wealth  for  purposes  of  relief.  Prevention 
is  the  watchword  of  the  working-man.  Organize 
salvation  before  salvation  becomes  hopeless.  Let 
the  workman  give  to  his  work  and  the  work  give 
to  the  workman  each  of  its  best  and  all  these  vari- 
ous charity  organizations  can  be  scrapped  as  the 
worn-out  machines  of  a  worn-out  world. 

In  the  morality  of  the  working-class  the  word 
thrift  will  not  be  found.  The  working-man  will 
give  as  much  as  he  gets,  and  it  is  only  by  giving 
less  than  he  gets  that  a  man  can  be  thrifty.  Dur- 
ing the  days  of  family  dominion,  the  members  of 
the  family  worked  with  and  for  the  family  and  the 
family  provided  for  its  members.  As  long  as 
the  family  was  rich  or  well-to-do,  no  member  of  the 
family  had  any  fear.  The  sick  knew  that  they 
would  be  cared  for,  and  the  aged  that  their  last 
days  would  be  peace.  But  with  the  loss  of  the 
family  as  an  economic  unit,  the  sick  and  the  aged 
are  the  prey  of  despair.     Working-class  morality 


250      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

will  simply  restore  family  morality.  It  will  say 
that  the  working-man  is  worthy  not  only  of  his 
hire  but  of  more  than  his  hire.  He  is  worthy  of 
his  life,  and  he  will  be  so  adjusted  to  the  com- 
munity that  out  of  the  work  of  his  earlier  life  will 
be  saved  the  provision  of  his  later  life.  Community 
insurance  against  sickness,  old  age,  and  unemploy- 
ment, will  take  the  place  of  the  saving-instinct  and 
man  at  last  can  begin  to  live  as  do  the  flowers  of 
the  field  and  the  birds  of  the  air.  He  can  enter  a 
little  way  into  the  wonderful  words  of  the  Master 
of  Life,  when  he  said :  "  Consider  the  lilies  of  the 
field  how  they  grow,  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they 
spin;  and  yet  I  say  unto  you  that  even  Solomon 
in  all  his  glory,  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these." 
The  morality  of  the  working-class  will  repeal  the 
moralities  of  both  the  master  and  the  subject  class. 
When  we  are  all  equals,  there  can  be  no  pride  of 
place.  Even  to-day  he  is  an  exceptional  man  who 
as  he  walks  the  streets  has  any  sense  of  superiority 
over  his  fellow-men  walking  the  same  street.  When 
provision  is  made  by  the  community  for  the  great 
accidents  as  well  as  the  abiding  necessities  of  life, 
riches  will  be  an  excrescence,  a  tumor  to  be  got  rid 
of,  rather  than  a  badge  of  glory.  It  is  even  so  to- 
day. Life  is  so  adjusting  itself  to  the  means  of 
production  and  distribution  that  great  wealth  to- 
day does  not  bring  to  its  owner  any  abiding  satis- 


WORKING-CLASS  MORALITY  251 

faction.  It  is  something  to  be  rid  of.  One  of  the 
richest  of  our  contemporaries  says  that  every  man 
ought  to  die  poor.  If  this  be  true,  sensible  men  will 
say  that  the  best  way  to  die  poor  is  to  live  in  pov- 
erty. The  steel-king  finds  a  difficulty  in  dying  poor 
that  did  not  beset  the  Christian  saint.  In  the  pres- 
ent day,  and  more  and  more  as  time  goes  on,  men 
will  neither  wish  to  live  in  riches,  nor  to  die  in 
poverty,  but  in  that  mean  estate  betwixt  the  two 
which  has  been  by  the  wise  declared  to  be  the  only 
sane  condition  of  human  life;  and  when  this  dispo- 
sition is  controlling,  it  will  be  discovered  that 
human  genius  and  human  labor  are  quite  sufficient 
to  provide  for  all  reasonable  human  beings.  As  it 
was  in  the  days  of  the  family  and  in  the  days  of  the 
monastery,  the  community  will  be  rich,  the  indi- 
vidual poor.  The  community  will  own  all  things, 
the  individual  will  own  only  his  membership  in  the 
community  and  the  right  to  share  in  its  average 
prosperity. 

The  morality  of  the  working-class  is  community 
morality.  The  morality  that  is  preached  in  the 
churches  and  taught  in  the  schools  is  largely  indi- 
vidualistic morality.  The  one  morality  deals  with 
the  major  duties  of  human  life,  the  other  with  the 
minor  duties  of  personal  conduct.  The  current 
morality  insists  upon  temperance  and  neglects  jus- 
tice; it  lays  great  stress  upon  the  proper  way  of 


252      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

spending  money  and  pays  no  attention  to  the  right- 
ful method  of  earning  money.  It  pries  into  the 
private  life  and  seeks  to  regulate  all  those  actions 
which  properly  belong  to  the  individual  and  it  lets 
the  public  life  pass  without  scrutiny.  It  is  this 
neglect  of  the  major  morality  on  the  part  of  the 
modern  moralist  that  is  largely  to  blame  for  the 
present  depravity  of  our  social  life.  So  long  as  a 
man  does  not  get  drunk ;  so  long  as  he  is,  outwardly 
at  least,  faithful  in  the  marriage  relation,  he  is 
secure  in  his  respectability.  His  membership  in 
the  church  is  unquestioned  and  his  social  standing 
secure.  He  may  at  the  same  time  be  grinding  the 
faces  of  the  poor,  be  robbing  the  community  by 
every  shift  that  the  lawyer  can  devise,  and  all  this 
may  be  well  known, —  but  he  suffers  no  excommuni- 
cation on  the  part  either  of  the  church  or  of  so- 
ciety. On  the  contrary,  he  has  the  chief  seat  in 
the  synagogue  and  in  the  market-place  he  is  called 
master.  It  is  this  topsy-turvy  condition  of  moral- 
ity that  is  responsible  for  much  of  our  present 
misery.  The  world  is  turned  upside  down  and 
only  when  it  is  righted,  can  we  expect  to  have  any- 
thing like  decent,  peaceful  living. 

In  many  things  the  working-class  moralist  shocks 
the  sensibilities  of  the  formal  moralist  of  the  day. 
The  working-class  moralist  does  not  seem  to  care 
whether  a  man  does  or  does  not  drink  a  glass  of 


WORKING-CLASS  MORALITY  253 

beer;  he  does  not  spy  out  the  personal  life  of  the 
man  where  it  does  not  touch  the  general  life  of  the 
people.  His  morality  is  a  class  morality.  He  re- 
quires of  each  man  loyalty  to  his  class.  The  fact 
that  he  is  waging  a  class  war  causes  him  to  demand 
the  virtue  of  the  soldier  rather  than  the  virtue  of 
the  private  individual.  The  love  affairs  of  Nelson 
did  not  concern  the  English  people.  All  they  asked 
of  him  was  that  he  should  lead  the  English  navies 
to  victory.  And  to-day  the  column  of  Nelson  in 
Trafalgar  Square  is  witness  to  the  fact  that  in  all 
great  crises  of  the  world,  public  morality  covers 
many  a  private  sin.  The  working-class  moralist 
is,  however,  insisting  on  temperance,  not  because 
he  wishes  to  interfere  with  the  pleasures  of  the  in- 
dividual, but  because  he  knows  that  temperance  is 
a  public  duty.  The  war  which  he  is  waging  calls 
for  clear  judgment,  steady  nerves,  and  staying 
power.  Hence,  there  is  no  place  in  this  war  for 
the  drunkard,  but  apart  from  this  the  working- 
class  moralist  gives  to  the  cause  of  temperance  no 
thought  whatever.  He  has  not  the  slightest  in- 
terest in  the  prohibition  propaganda,  nor  will  he 
spend  his  time  or  strength  in  seeking  to  compel 
men  and  women  to  live  together  when  they  wish  to 
live  apart.  The  agitation  against  divorce  finds  the 
working-class  moralist  lukewarm.  He  is  well 
aware  that  economic  conditions  are  the  occasion 


254      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

of  much  of  the  unhappiness  that  leads  to  the  break- 
up of  the  home  and  the  disruption  of  the  fam- 
ily. Consequently,  he  gives  all  his  energies  to  the 
effort  of  bettering  these  economic  conditions. 
When  men  and  women  are  economically  free,  they 
will  be  able  to  order  their  mutual  relations  upon  the 
basis  of  mutual  affection.  They  will  not  fear  one 
another  and  consequently  they  will,  if  they  are 
united  in  any  sexual  bond,  love  one  another. 

This  change  of  the  basis  of  morality  from  minor 
to  major  morals,  is  the  result  of  the  campaign  of 
agitation  that  has  been  carried  on  in  the  working- 
class  during  the  last  three-quarters  of  a  century. 
The  teachers  of  morality  in  the  churches,  the 
schools,  and  the  colleges,  have  been  outflanked  by 
the  working-class  moralist.  They  are  firing  into 
space,  the  enemy  has  left  their  field  of  battle  and 
is  preparing  to  attack  them  in  the  rear.  It  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  that  these  teachers  of  current 
morality  should  right-about-face.  If  they  would 
conquer  the  working-class  moralist,  they  can  do  so 
only  with  the  weapons  and  upon  the  battlefield  of 
working-class  morality.  The  revolution  in  moral- 
ity is  already  accomplished  so  far  as  the  working- 
class  is  concerned.  The  men  and  the  women  of  the 
factory  and  the  shop  will  no  longer  accept  that 
teaching  which  commands  them  to  a  life  of  sub- 
servience.    They  will  from  this  time  on  insist  upon 


WORKING-CLASS  MORALITY  255 

the  right  to  live  a  full  lminan  life.  They  will  call 
no  man  master  upon  earth,  because  they  find  the 
seat  of  mastership  in  their  own  souls.  They  will 
be  ready  to  conform  to  all  the  beneficent  laws, 
habits,  and  customs  necessary  to  the  perfection  of 
human  existence,  but  before  they  will  obey  any 
law,  they  must  understand  it  and  if  it  be  a  human 
law,  they  themselves  must  enact  it.  They  will  not 
render  unthinking  obedience  any  longer.  They 
will  not  shed  their  brother's  blood  at  the  command 
of  a  superior.  Nor  will  they  give  of  their  strength 
without  a  full  equivalent  in  return.  The  master 
class  which  is  the  monied  class  in  the  modern 
world,  must  submit  to  working-class  morality.  It 
cannot  hope  to  drive  the  working-class  back  to  the 
old  basis  of  morals.  It  cannot  hope  to  destroy  the 
working-class,  for  the  destruction  of  the  working- 
class  is  its  own  destruction.  Hence,  the  master 
class  must  itself  stand  upon  working-class  moral- 
ity.    There  is  no  other  way. 


XI 

WORKING-CLASS   POLITICS 

AS  a  consequence  of  working-class  morality,  that 
class  is  to-day  organized  politically.  It  has 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  if  it  is  to  accomplish 
its  own  deliverance  it  can  do  so  only  by  taking 
over  into  its  own*  control  the  functions  of  govern- 
ment. The  master-class  morality  enacted  into  law 
is  enforced  by  the  powers  now  ruling  in  politics. 
Master-class  morality  has  on  its  side  the  army  and 
the  police.  All  the  laws  up  to  this  time  have  been 
made  in  the  interest  of  that  class.  Only  after  bit- 
ter struggle  has  the  working-class  been  able  to  se- 
cure for  itself  any  modification  of  the  conditions 
under  which  it  is  compelled  to  live.  Legal  prin- 
ciples are  derived  from  the  times  of  slavery.  Pri- 
vate property  is  to-day  the  chief  concern  of  the 
law.  The  first  property  right  of  man  was  the  right 
to  own  his  fellow-man  and  reap  the  products  of  his 
labor.  Slavery  was  the  basic  institution  of  the  an- 
cient world  and  all  the  laws  from  the  statutes  of 
Hammurabi  down  almost  to  the  present  time  have 
been  concerned  with  the  duty  of  protecting  prop- 
erty against  assault.     The  slave-holders  in  the  an- 

256 


WORKING-CLASS  POLITICS  257 

cient  world  made  the  slave  code,  just  as  the  slave- 
holders in  the  South  made  the  black  code  of  the 
South  during  the  times  of  slavery.  This  right  of 
the  master  men  to  the  ownership  of  the  labor  of  the 
slave  class  colors  to-day  all  of  our  legislation.  It 
does  not  enter  into  the  miad  of  the  legislator  that 
each  man  has  an  inherent  right  to  the  full  product 
of  his  own  labor;  but  that  what  is  called  capital 
is  entitled  to  the  largest  possible  return,  that  prop- 
erty has  the  privilege  of  reducing  human  life  to 
misery,  goes  almost  without  question.  The  reason 
for  this  is  that  it  is  the  man  of  property  who  makes 
the  laws.  The  political  parties  of  all  the  western 
nations  are  organized  and  controlled  by  the  prop- 
erty-owners. Until  recent  times,  the  property 
classes  excluded  the  working-classes  altogether 
from  the  exercise  of  political  rights.  The  working- 
man  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  enacting 
of  the  laws  that  governed  his  life.  He  was  an  out- 
sider, his  sole  duty  was  obedience  and  he  had  to 
take  what  was  given  him.  His  masters  not  only 
made  the  laws,  but  they  interpreted  the  laws  and 
enforced  them.  The  consequence  was  that  the 
propertied  classes  took  from  the  working-classes, 
by  due  process  of  law,  all  that  the  working-class 
produced,  except  that  which  was  necessary  to  main- 
tain the  working-class  in  a  bare  existence. 

The  influence  of  law  upon  life  is  apparent  to 


258       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

every  thinker.  Mr.  Eliliu  Eoot,  in  a  very  able 
pamphlet,  has  set  forth  the  relation  that  good  and 
bad  law  have  to  human  adversity  and  prosperity. 
A  bad  law  is  more  blighting  than  a  drought,  more 
killing  than  a  frost.  The  poverty  that  to-day  af- 
flicts our  civilization  is  due  almost  entirely  to  the 
evil  working  of  the  laws  which  have  been  made 
in  the  interests  of  property.  It  is  well  known  that 
by  a  simple  process  of  taxation  a  whole  population 
can  be  depressed,  impoverished,  and  finally  starved 
to  death.  This  taxation  need  not  be  direct.  It 
may  be  altogether  disguised  from  the  taxpayer. 
If  the  law  is  made  so  that  one  man  can  gain  advan- 
tage over  another  man,  then  that  is  simply  grant- 
ing to  the  privileged  person  the  right  of  taxation. 
Such  to-day  is  the  working  of  our  laws.  When  we 
grant  to  one  man  unlimited  private  ownership  of 
the  means  of  production  or  of  the  sources  of  wealth, 
we  turn  over  to  that  man  the  taxing-power.  In 
the  language  of  ancient  times,  we  farm  the  taxes, 
and  in  all  history  there  has  been  no  such  destruc- 
tive force  as  the  farmer  of  the  taxes.  He  collects 
not  only  what  is  due  the  community,  but  he  takes 
also,  for  himself,  a  double  portion.  The  farming 
of  the  taxes  has  been  formally  discarded  by  every 
civilized  community  of  modern  times;  but  while 
this  is  formally  true,  there  still  lurks  in  the  legal 
institutions   of   the  modern   States,   hiding-places 


WORKING-CLASS  POLITICS  259 

from  which  the  tax-farmer  emerges  to  do  his  de- 
structive work  in  the  community.  The  laws  shel- 
ter him,  and  by  means  of  the  laws  he  accomplishes 
his  nefarious  task. 

The  working-class  politician,  or  rather,  as  one 
should  say,  the  working-class  statesman,  has  mas- 
tered this  secret  of  modern  political  organization. 
He  has  come  to  see  the  immense  advantage  pos- 
sessed by  those  who  control  the  making,  the  inter- 
preting, and  the  enforcing  of  the  laws.  And  he 
has  made  up  his  mind  to  take  a  hand  in  that  work 
himself.  He  comprehends  the  fact  that  only  when 
the  laws  are  made  in  the  interest  of  himself  and 
his  class  can  that  class  hope  for  deliverance.  To- 
day it  is  under  the  law ;  and,  therefore,  he  preaches 
to  that  class  that  if  it  would  be  saved  it  must  be  no 
longer  under  the  law  but  over  the  law,  it  must  be 
able  at  any  time  to  command  the  machinery  that 
grinds  out  the  law.  The  legislative,  the  judicial, 
and  the  executive  power,  by  means  of  which  laws 
are  made,  interpreted,  and  executed,  must  all  be 
within  the  grasp  of  the  working-man,  so  that  he 
can  turn  those  powers  to  the  right  or  to  the  left, 
halt  them  or  drive  them  forward  as  the  interest  of 
the  working-class  demands.  In  other  words,  he 
must  revolutionize  politics.  Politics  to-day  sub- 
mits to  the  dictations  of  the  property  classes,  it 
must  to-morrow  obey  the  working-classes. 


260      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

Because  of  this,  the  working-class  is  in  politics 
and  it  is  there  to  stay.  There  is  a  political  party 
organized  in  the  interests  of  the  working-class  and 
that  class  only.  Class-conscious  politics  is  no  new 
thing  in  political  history.  All  political  parties 
have  been  class-conscious  parties.  The  great  strug- 
gle that  was  waged  in  the  seventeenth,  eighteenth, 
and  nineteenth  centuries  between  the  citizen  and 
landlord  classes,  found  their  expression  in  political 
parties.  The  Tory  party  represented  the  landlord, 
the  Whig  party  the  commercial  classes.  To-day 
the  Conservative  party  of  England  is  the  agent  of 
what  remains  of  the  landlord  class  in  England  and 
the  Liberal  party  is  still  the  instrument  of  the  tri- 
umphant mercantile  classes.  Both  of  these  po- 
litical parties  work  in  the  interests  of  the  property 
classes.  They  make  concessions  to  the  working- 
class,  but  these  are  made  grudgingly  and  without 
primary  regard  to  the  needs  of  the  working-class. 
The  working-people  have  just  made  their  entrance 
into  the  political  life  of  England.  When  at  elec- 
tion thirty  members  of  the  Labor  party  were  chosen 
to  represent  that  class  in  Parliament,  the  London 
Times  of  the  next  morning  declared  that  this  was 
a  revolution  in  English  politics,  and  so  it  has 
proved  to  be.  Those  thirty  working-men  have 
within  the  brief  period  of  a  decade  accomplished 
more  for  the  working-class  than  all  that  the  other 


WOKKING-CLASS  POLITICS  261 

parties   have   granted    to   that   class    as   a    favor 
throughout  their  whole  existence. 

In  Germany  the  political  party  of  the  working- 
class  has  acquired  a  momentum  that  is  giving  it 
supremacy.  It  is  to-day  the  most  considerable  po- 
litical party  in  the  Empire.  It  has  the  largest 
number  of  representatives  in  the  legislative  body. 
It  is  able  to  block  any  anti-working-class  legisla- 
tion. It  has  forced  upon  the  Empire  and  upon  the 
various  German  States  a  working-class  policy. 
Germany  is  being  rapidly  socialized.  State  social- 
ism is  the  policy  of  the  government,  communistic 
production  is  becoming  rapidly  the  policy  of  the 
various  cities.  Because  of  the  presence  in  Ger- 
many of  this  highly  organized  political  party  in 
the  interest  of  the  working-class,  the  condition  of 
the  German  working-man  is  far  better  than  that  of 
the  working-man  in  any  other  country.  Germany 
is  taking  the  lead  in  all  that  concerns  the  welfare 
of  the  industrial  population,  and  consequently  is 
outstripping  other  peoples  in  the  quality  and  quan- 
tity of  its  industrial  products.  The  working-class 
party,  however,  is  not  content  with  this  betterment 
of  the  class.  It  does  not  mean  to  rest  in  State 
socialism  or  to  be  satisfied  with  a  partial  com- 
munity production.  Its  object  is  not  reform,  but 
revolution.  It  is  not  yet  sufficiently  strong  to 
command  the  whole  situation.     It  is,  however,  de- 


262       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

feating  the  enemy  in  detail.  Every  enactment, 
such  as  an  old-age  pension,  compensation  for  in- 
dustrial injury,  insurance  against  sickness,  pen- 
sions for  mothers,  insurance  against  unemploy- 
ment, strengthens  labor  and  weakens  capital.  It 
limits  the  power  of  capital  to  exploit  labor;  and 
with  every  such  limitation,  capital  loses  and  labor 
gains.  Capital  to-day  is  on  the  defensive.  It  is 
no  longer  making  the  assault.  It  cannot  so  much 
as  leave  its  entrenchments,  it  is  in  a  state  of  siege. 
The  working-class  statesman  feels  that  its  final 
conquest  is  only  a  matter  of  time.  The  wiser 
among  the  leaders  of  the  working-class  movement 
are  determined  that  this  battle  shall  be  fought  to 
a  conclusion  on  the  line  of  political  activity.  So 
great  have  been  the  advantages  which  have  accrued 
from  political  action,  that  the  so-called  direct  ac- 
tionist  finds  himself  an  outlaw  in  the  great  work- 
ing-class political  organization.  His  guerrilla  war- 
fare is  a  hindrance  instead  of  a  help  to  the  general 
cause.  The  working-class  to-day  is  fighting  in  the 
open.  It  is  obedient  to  the  laws  of  civilized  war- 
fare. It  does  not  plot,  it  debates.  It  does  not 
cast  the  bomb,  it  casts  the  vote.  It  knows  that  the 
only  way  to  accomplish  a  lasting  revolt  is  not  by 
killing  the  ruler,  but  by  changing  the  rule.  You 
may  murder  kings  till  doomsday  and  kings  will 
still  rule.     The  only  way  to  get  rid  of  kings  is  to 


WORKING-CLASS  POLITICS  263 

abolish  kingship.  The  war-cry  of  the  working- 
class  is  not  change  jour  rulers,  but  change  your 
system. 

Working-class  politics  is  the  outward  expression 
of  a  revolution  that  has  already  been  accomplished 
in  the  structure  of  human  society.  Society  in  the 
first  instance  was  based  upon  kinship.  This  gave 
rise  to  the  tribe  with  all  its  customs,  habits,  and 
laws.  The  next  organic  structure  was  based  upon 
territory.  A  given  organization  claimed  for  itself 
a  certain  portion  of  the  earth.  Modern  society  is 
based  upon  industry.  Society  has  not  yet  fully 
accommodated  itself  to  this  new  structural  rela- 
tionship, but  it  is  in  the  process  of  accommodation. 
The  working-class  political  party  is  the  necessary 
outcome  of  this  basic  change,  and  is  the  instrument 
that  humanity  is  using  to  complete  the  alteration 
of  its  social  establishment.  A  profound  social  re- 
adjustment is  the  necessity  of  present  conditions. 

Mankind  has  abandoned  race  and  country  as  the 
foundation  of  social  organization.  The  working- 
class  statesman  recognizes  this  fact  and  organizes 
his  politics  without  regard  to  limitations  of  race 
or  territory.  Working-class  politics  are  inter- 
racial and  international.  All  peoples,  tongues,  and 
nations  are  gathered  under  the  banner  of  the  work- 
ing-class party.  For  the  first  time  in  human  his- 
tory, secular  politics  have  passed  the  bounds  of 


264      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

nationalism.  The  working-class  has  become  con- 
scious of  itself  as  a  class  throughout  the  world, 
and  is  seeking  the  betterment  of  its  class  indus- 
trially and  subordinating  to  those  interests  the 
interests  of  the  Church,  the  Family,  and  the  State. 
The  working-class  statesman  sees  his  brother  in 
every  man  who  has  the  good  of  the  working-class 
at  heart.  His  natural  brother  is  nothing  to  him  if 
that  brother  is  on  the  other  side  of  the  great  in- 
dustrial conflict.  He  reaches  out  his  hand  and 
says :  "  Who  is  my  mother,  my  sister,  and  my 
brother?"  And  his  answer  is:  "My  mother,  my 
brother,  and  my  sister  are  they  who  know  the  will 
of  the  working-class  and  do  it."  National  boun- 
daries cannot  limit  the  range  of  his  statesmanship. 
The  working-man  dwells  in  every  land  and  where- 
ever  the  working-man  is,  there  the  working-class 
party  is  to  assert  and  protect  his  rights.  For  this 
reason  the  working-class  party  is  the  party  most 
bitterly  opposed  to  war  between  the  nations. 

The  nations  are  to-day  and  always  have  been 
organized  for  war.  The  hostility  that  existed  be- 
tween man  and  man  in  primitive  times,  when  every 
man's  hand  was  against  every  man's  in  the  strug- 
gle for  bread,  organized  itself  in  the  tribe,  in  the 
family,  and  in  the  State.  So  that  in  the  thought 
of  the  ancient  world  the  stranger  was  an  enemy; 
the  man  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  was  the 


WORKING-CLASS  TOLITICS  265 

natural  foe  of  the  man  on  this  side  the  river.  And 
these  could  live  in  peace  together  only  by  some 
artificial  agreement.  So  natural  seemed  this  state 
of  enmity  that  walls  were  built  about  the  home 
and  the  city  as  matters  of  necessary  precaution. 
Nations  to-day  arm  themselves  from  top  to  toe 
that  they  may  be  secure  from  the  hostility  which 
each  nation  believes  to  lurk  within  the  heart  of 
every  other  nation  against  itself.  For  many  cen- 
turies war  has  been  the  business  of  the  political 
governments,  and  each  nation  has  tried  to  subject 
the  other  nations  to  its  own  uses.  This  state  of 
war  which  has  been  constant  from  the  beginning 
of  civilization  down  to  the  present  has  weighed 
heavily  upon  the  working-class  in  all  countries. 
It  has  placed  the  working-class  at  immense  dis- 
advantage; it  has  divided  that  class  into  two  sec- 
tions, the  military  class  and  the  labor  class.  In 
the  person  of  the  soldier,  the  working-class  has 
done  the  fighting  and  the  dying,  in  the  person  of 
the  laborer  the  working-class  has  provisioned  the 
army.  The  working-class  as  such  has  had  little  or 
no  interest  in  the  wars  of  the  nations.  It  makes 
no  material  difference  to  this  class  which  army 
conquers.  Its  fields  are  wasted,  its  houses  are 
burned,  its  men  are  killed,  whether  the  French  or 
the  German  are  victorious. 

In  modern  times  wars  have  been  occasioned  very 


266      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

largely  by  questions  relating  to  commerce.  The 
capitalistic  nations  have  invaded  and  subdued  the 
non-capitalistic  peoples  in  the  interest  of  the  mar- 
ket. One  of  the  earliest  and  the  most  important 
of  these  conflicts  was  that  between  the  East  In- 
dians and  the  English  which  resulted  in  the  sub- 
jection of  India  to  the  rule  of  England  and  the 
exploitation  of  its  people  by  the  commerce  of  Eng- 
land. The  Napoleonic  wars  in  the  end  became 
commercial  in  their  character.  Napoleon  sought 
to  destroy  England  by  cutting  it  off  from  the  Con- 
tinental market.  The  English  mercantile  class, 
then  in  power,  struggled  to  the  death  to  secure  for 
itself  the  open  market  of  the  world.  With  the 
battle  of  Waterloo  the  triumph  of  England  was 
secure  and  her  commercial  expansion  followed. 
Neither  the  English  people  nor  the  French,  nor  any 
of  the  peoples  of  Continental  Europe,  were  directly 
interested  in  the  outcome  of  these  wars.  The  com- 
mon people  in  all  countries  were  impoverished  by 
them  and  that  poverty  still  exists  among  us,  tes- 
tifying to  the  fact  that  the  people  pay  and  the 
people  die,  while  only  the  ruling-class  is  advan- 
taged, by  any  war. 

This  fact  has  been  finally  mastered  by  the  work- 
ing-class and  it  is  coming  to  the  determination  that 
as  a  class  it  will  no  longer  be  a  party  to  Interna- 
tional war.     The  decay  of  patriotism  is  alarming 


WOEKING-CLASS  POLITICS  267 

the  governments.  The  red  flag  of  Internationalism 
is  flying  in  the  streets  of  the  cities  of  all  lands,  as 
a  warning  to  the  political  powers  that  the  people 
will  no  longer  give  them  unhesitating  obedience  in 
their  efforts  to  gain  by  wrarfare  the  advantage  of 
other  nations.  The  international  working-class 
movement  is  to-day  the  only  hope  for  the  ultimate 
peace  of  the  world.  The  governments  of  the  States 
are  so  deeply  committed  to  the  military  principle 
that  it  is  quite  impossible  for  them  to  abandon  it 
except  on  compulsion.  The  Hague  conferences 
witness  to  the  fact  that  it  is  out  of  the  question 
to  hope  for  the  abolition  of  war  through  the  action 
of  the  organized  governments  of  the  nations.  Im- 
mediately upon  the  meeting  of  the  first  Hague  con- 
ference, there  followed  two  of  the  most  unneces- 
sary, destructive  wars  known  to  recent  history. 
The  Boer  war  and  the  Eussian-Japanese  war  cele- 
brated the  closing  of  the  first  conference  at  the 
Hague.  These  conferences  had  not  been  able  to 
persuade  any  of  the  great  powers  so  much  as  to 
limit  their  armaments.  The  war  budgets  of  the 
various  governments  of  Christendom  make  the 
Hague  conference  a  laughing-stock  to  the  working- 
class.  The  thinking  working-man  comprehends 
that  all  of  this  expression  of  the  sentiments  of  peace 
is  meant  largely  for  his  amusement  and  to  act  as 
a  salve  upon  the  philanthropic  and  religious  con- 


268      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

science  of  the  upper  classes.  Military  power  is 
necessary  to-day  for  the  protection  of  the  ruling- 
class  in  each  nation  against  the  subjected  class. 
In  the  estimation  of  the  working-man,  this  is  the 
real  reason  for  the  maintenance  of  the  armaments 
of  the  nation.  Even  the  advocates  of  peace  assert 
that  we  must  still  have  an  army,  to  maintain  order 
within  the  several  nations  themselves.  That  is, 
the  working-class  must  still  be  separated  into  two 
sections,  the  military  class  and  the  labor  class 
proper,  in  order  that  the  military  may  support  the 
present  ruling-class  against  the  rising  working- 
class.  Hence  it  is  that  the  leaders  of  the  working- 
class  are  seeking  to  lessen,  discourage,  and  destroy 
the  military  spirit.  When  a  working-man  has  once 
been  inoculated  with  working-class  politics,  he  has 
no  desire  to  put  on  the  uniform  and  carry  the  mus- 
ket. It  is  the  fear  of  this  working-class  movement 
which  has  held  the  military  powers  of  Europe  in 
check  during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century.  The 
mighty  social  democratic  spirit  of  the  German  Em- 
pire is  a  curb  upon  the  German  war-lords.  The 
social  democratic  spirit  would  resent  any  flagrant 
invasion  of  the  rights  of  Germany  on  the  part  of 
Eussia,  England,  or  France,  but  at  the  same  time 
it  will  not  consent  to  any  mere  wanton  outbreak 
on  the  part  of  Germany  against  these  nations. 
The  democratic  social  party  in  convention  assem- 


WOEKING-CLASS  POLITICS  269 

bled  in  the  city  of  Basle,  gave  warning  to  the 
various  powers  of  Europe  that  they  must  not 
plunge  Europe  into  war  on  account  of  the  dis- 
turbances in  the  Balkan  States.  This  manifesto 
had  its  effect  and,  with  other  causes,  has  acted  to 
prevent  a  general  war  in  Europe  at  the  present 
time. 

The  thinkers  of  the  working-class  are  already 
forecasting  the  organization  of  the  world.  Inter- 
national republicanism  is  their  dream.  This  spirit 
would  not  destroy  a  nationality,  but  it  would  sub- 
ordinate nationality  to  a  world  policy.  There  is 
at  the  present  time  a  world  organization.  Com- 
merce is  its  expression.  The  nations  are  so  knit 
together  that  any  break  in  their  relationship  is  a 
pain  and  a  disaster  to  all.  The  laboring-class  in 
all  nations  are  united  in  one  body.  They  are  be- 
coming conscious  of  their  common  interests ;  across 
the  border-lines  they  are  calling  each  other  com- 
rade and  are  exchanging  thoughts.  A  member  of 
the  democratic  social  party  can  take  his  red  card 
and  travel  from  one  country  to  another  and  be  wel- 
comed in  every  place  by  the  local  of  that  place. 
Nothing  like  this  has  happened  in  the  world  since 
the  days  of  early  Christianity.  It  is  impossible 
for  the  political  powers  to  resist  long  this  growing 
sentiment  of  comradeship  in  the  hearts  of  the  work- 
ing-people.    The  waving  of  the  flag,  the  shouting 


270      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

of  the  national  shibboleth,  no  longer  stirs  the  hearts 
of  the  working-people,  and  when  once  this  class  as 
a  whole  makes  up  its  mind  that  it  does  not  care 
to  fight,  there  will  be  an  end  of  fighting.  The 
upper  classes  furnish  the  officers,  but  not  the  pri- 
vates, and  when  the  military  consists  principally 
of  officers,  then  it  will  exercise  itself  in  military 
manoeuvers  but  will  not  seek  to  extinguish  itself 
on  fields  of  battle.  Every  one  who  has  at  heart 
the  abolition  of  war  should  ally  himself  with  the 
democratic  social  movement  as  the  most  available 
instrument  whereby  to  accomplish  this  beneficent 
end. 

The  order  of  evolution  at  the  present  time  is  from 
militarism  to  industrialism,  from  foreign  affairs 
to  home  concerns.  The  developments  of  the  func- 
tions of  government  within  the  past  century  has 
changed  entirely  the  structure  of  the  State  and 
the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  community. 
The  Federal  government  of  the  United  States  was 
created  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the  States  an 
organ  whereby  these  various  political  bodies  might 
treat  with  foreign  nations.  It  was  in  the  thought 
of  the  originators  of  the  Federal  constitution  little 
more  than  a  league  of  offense  and  defense.  In  or- 
der that  the  central  government  might  be  effective, 
it  was  given  direct  jurisdiction  in  all  affairs  com- 
mitted to  it  by  the  several  States.     But  the  States 


WORKING-CLASS  POLITICS  271 

considered  themselves  to  be  distinct  nationalities, 
possessed  of  powers  with  which  the  central  gov- 
ernment could  not  interfere.  The  first  cabinet  of 
the  President  of  the  United  States  contained  only 
four  departments,  the  Department  of  State,  of  War, 
of  the  Treasury,  and  of  Justice.  The  increase  in 
the  number  of  departments  in  the  cabinet  has  fol- 
lowed the  line  of  social  revolution.  Instead  of  the 
four  cabinet-officers  who  sat  at  the  table  of  the 
first  President,  there  are  now  ten  members  of  the 
presidential  council.  Foreign  affairs  play  but  a 
small  part  in  the  life  of  the  nation.  The  Secre- 
tary of  State,  while  titularly  the  head  of  the  cab- 
inet, is  not  its  most  important  member.  The  de- 
partments of  the  Treasury,  of  the  Interior,  of 
Labor,  of  Commerce,  and  of  Agriculture,  are  each 
of  them  employing  subordinates  that  exceed  the 
force  of  the  State  Departments  four  and  five  to 
one.  Each  of  these  departments  as  they  have  been 
created  has  marked  an  encroachment  on  the  part 
of  the  Federal  Government,  not  so  much  upon  the 
rights  of  the  States,  as  upon  the  rights  of  individ- 
uals. The  government  is  interfering  with  private 
business  in  a  way  undreamed  of  by  the  fathers. 
All  this  is  in  the  direction  of  the  socializing  of  the 
means  of  transportation  and  production  which  is 
the  program  of  the  democratic  social  party.  We 
have  not  yet  come  in  sight  of  the  end  of  this  tend- 


272      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

ency  toward  socialism.  New  departments  will  be 
added  to  the  Federal  and  State  Governments  as 
the  years  go  by.  A  department  of  health  and  one 
of  education  are  necessities  at  the  present  time, 
and  we  may  not  be  surprised  in  the  future  to  find 
a  department  of  eugenics  regulating  the  produc- 
tion of  human  beings,  just  as  the  department  of 
agriculture  is  to-day  supervising  the  production  of 
swine,  horses,  and  cattle. 

The  extension  of  governmental  control  is  the 
consequence  of  the  industrial  changes  which  have 
made  production,  distribution  and  consumption 
not  private,  but  public  affairs.  The  government 
of  the  United  States  and  that  of  the  several  States 
of  the  Union  are  but  slowly  following  in  the  wake 
of  the  more  progressive  nations  which  have  long 
since  taken  out  of  private  hands  into  public  con- 
trol such  business  as  must  be  managed  by  the  pub- 
lic if  the  people  are  to  be  protected  in  their  right 
to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 

Working-class  politics  is  finding  expression  in  all 
of  these  changes  in  the  functions  of  government. 
It  is  the  pressure  upward  of  the  working-class  that 
has  dislocated  the  ancient  machinery  and  made  it 
unworkable.  The  discontent  of  the  industrial 
classes  has  forced  the  ruling-classes  to  make  con- 
cessions, and  this  discontent  will  continue  demand- 


WOKKING-CLASS  POLITICS  273 

ing  more  and  more  until  at  last  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  classes  is  obliterated  and  only  one  class, 
which  will  be  the  working-class,  remains. 

The  cooperative  communism  is  the  domestic  pol- 
icy of  the  democratic  social  party.  Home  rule  is 
essential  to  the  working  of  the  plan.  Each  com- 
munity must  organize  itself  into  its  industries. 
It  must  govern  its  baking  and  its  brewing,  just  as 
it  now  governs  the  cleaning  of  its  streets  and  the 
piping  of  its  water.  The  directions  of  the  forces  of 
labor  are  to  be  determined  by  the  necessities  of 
the  community  and  not  by  the  caprices  of  private 
speculation.  The  right  of  the  community  to  the 
land  which  it  occupies  is  a  principle  that  cannot 
be  denied  very  much  longer.  The  palpable  absurd- 
ity of  a  great  people,  such  as  now  inhabits  Man- 
hattan Island,  paying  immense  tribute  to  a  few 
private  individuals  because  of  some  shadowy  legal 
right,  cannot  maintain  itself  against  the  determina- 
tion of  the  whole  body  of  the  people,  themselves  to 
own  what  they  create.  All  of  the  things  that  are 
done  for  the  people  must  also  be  done  by  the  peo- 
ple. This  enlargement  of  the  area  of  politics  will 
compel  all  of  the  people  to  take  part  in  the  admin- 
istration of  the  government.  It  is  objected  that 
this  will  increase  immensely  the  employees  of  the 
government,  but  this,  instead  of  being  an  objection, 


274      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

is  an  advantage.  The  employees  of  the  govern- 
ment, if  they  are  rendering  service,  are  the  most 
useful  of  all  the  members  of  the  body  politic.  The 
letter-carrier  is  far  more  necessary  to  the  happi- 
ness of  the  people  than  is  the  bar-keeper  or  the 
salesman  who  is  selling  cigars.  Just  in  proportion 
as  the  energies  of  the  people  are  occupied  in  useful 
public  employment,  so  will  those  energies  be  with- 
drawn from  harmful,  private  enterprise.  Munic- 
ipal bakeries  and  factories  having  no  need  to  adver- 
tise themselves  by  artificial  means  can  employ  more 
and  better  bakers  in  the  making  of  bread.  When 
once  we  have  made  the  transition  from  the  present 
to  the  coming  system,  we  shall  marvel  at  the  fact 
that  we  delayed  so  long  to  make  so  beneficent  a 
change. 

In  the  not  distant  future  all  of  the  great  cen- 
ters of  human  living  will  be,  in  a  measure,  self- 
sustaining.  Each  community  will  be  organized  as 
a  family  to  provide  for  its  members  the  necessities 
of  life.  Commerce  will  be  a  public  and  not  a  pri- 
vate business.  Either  by  taxation  or  by  other 
means,  the  community  will  forbid  the  importation 
of  articles  that  it  considers  injurious  to  the  health 
of  the  people.  We  have  a  beginning  of  this  new 
policy  in  the  laws  regulating  the  liquor  traffic,  and 
we  can  as  easily  forbid  the  buying  and  the  selling 
of  impure  food,  of  shoddy  clothing,  as  we  can  for- 


WORKING-CLASS  POLITICS  275 

bid  the  importation  of  the  making,  the  buying,  and 
the  selling  of  wine  and  whisky. 

The  objection  that  all  this  will  deprive  life  of 
variety,  reduce  to  a  dreary  monotony  the  customs 
and  the  habits  of  the  people,  is  overruled  by  the 
answer  already  made  that  monotony  and  dreari- 
ness is  already  with  us  and  is  the  outcome  of  our 
present  system.  The  communities  like  families, 
having  the  greater  power,  could  create  for  them- 
selves lovely  homes  and  beautiful  clothing;  all  the 
advantages  that  come  from  applied  science,  all  the 
amenities  of  art  and  the  glories  of  true  religion, 
will  be  the  natural  outcome  of  the  release  of  the 
forces  of  humanity  from  that  which  now  occupies 
them  into  the  freer  life  which  will  be  theirs  when 
thus  delivered  from  the  necessity  of  a  constant 
struggle  against  competitors  for  existence.  The 
medieval  city  is  in  some  respects  but  a  prophecy 
of  what  the  city  of  the  future  is  to  be.  These  cities 
built  themselves,  they  were  not  created  by  the  hap- 
hazard planning  of  individuals,  but  were  the  out- 
come of  the  communal  intelligence.  The  ugliness 
of  the  main  street  of  an  ordinary  American  town 
is  an  evidence  of  the  inability  of  the  private  man 
to  create  a  great  public  utility  such  as  a  street  with 
its  buildings  should  be.  The  city  of  Chester  puts 
to  shame  every  city  of  like  size  in  the  United  States. 
The  city  is  the  home  of  all  the  citizens.     No  pri- 


276      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

vate  person  should  be  permitted  to  make  that  pub- 
lic dwelling-place  other  than  as  beautiful  as  it  can 
be  made. 

The  housing  of  the  people  is  in  the  estimation  of 
working-class  politics  a  public  function.  We  rec- 
ognize that  much  even  in  our  present  system.  We 
have  our  building-codes  and  we  are  beginning  to 
think  about  city-planning.  This  movement  will  go 
forward  until  at  last  the  principles  that  are  cre- 
ating it  shall  be  fully  acknowledged  and  the  social- 
ization of  the  city-life  be  accepted  as  a  matter  of 
principle.  It  is  the  social  democratic  agitation 
that  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  these  changes  and  con- 
sequently of  importance  at  the  present  time  that 
this  agitation  be  wisely  directed. 

We  may  sum  up  working-class  politics  in  two 
words,  Eepublicanism  and  Communism.  The  Re- 
publican principle  gives  over  to  the  larger  central- 
ized government  those  concerns  that  belong  to  the 
whole  population  of  a  State,  of  a  nation,  or  of  the 
world.  The  various  States  in  the  United  States 
are  federal  in  their  character.  In  them  towns, 
counties,  and  cities  are  united  in  all  that  con- 
cerns the  common  welfare  of  the  people  of  the 
State.  We  might  say  in  parentheses  here  that  our 
modern  American  States  are  purely  artificial,  are 
serving  no  real  purposes  of  government,  but  are 
simply    maintaining   ancient    traditions    and    cus- 


WORKING-CLASS  POLITICS  277 

toms.  But  in  so  far  as  they  are  a  reality,  they 
exercise  a  jurisdiction  in  the  greater  affairs  of  the 
people.  When  they  interfere  with  the  community 
affairs,  they  are  harmful  instead  of  helpful.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  great  national  governments. 
These  are  federations  of  communities  for  the  pur- 
pose of  transacting  the  business  which  the  com- 
munities have  with  one  another.  The  world  as  a 
whole  is  becoming  a  great  federation  for  the  inter- 
communication of  thought  and  the  interchange  of 
commodities.  This  federal  principle  is  necessary 
to  the  peace  of  the  world.  The  various  communi- 
ties must  have  some  power  which,  they  all  recog- 
nize and  to  which  in  disputes  between  themselves 
they  yield  obedience.  The  federation  of  the  world 
is  near  at  hand,  because  the  peoples  of  the  world 
when  once  instructed  in  the  principles  of  demo- 
cratic socialism,  will  find  their  interests  in  help- 
ing one  another  rather  than  in  hurting  one  an- 
other. The  various  peoples  will  create  a  great 
central  power  which  will  hold  unruly  communities 
in  check  and  bring  a  common  public  opinion  to 
bear  upon  all  neighborhoods. 

But  while  this  principle  of  federation  is  of  vast 
importance,  it  is  not  nearly  so  close  to  the  people, 
so  necessary  to  their  welfare,  as  the  principle  of 
cooperative  communism.  Each  community  must 
govern  itself  in  all  that  pertains  to  itself.     It  must 


278      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

secure  and  hold  the  right  to  determine  its  own  form 
of  government.  It  must  have  complete  jurisdic- 
tion in  all  that  pertains  to  its  own  welfare.  As  it 
extends  the  range  of  its  operations,  it  will  need 
more  and  more  of  liberty  in  which  to  exercise  the 
freedom  of  its  will.  The  free  cities  of  medieval 
Europe  are  an  example  of  what  the  free  city  must 
be  in  all  times.  Our  American  federal  system  has 
shown  the  distinction  between  local  and  federal 
affairs.  The  principles  of  federation  and  of  home 
rule  are  not  antagonistic,  they  are  coordinate. 
Working  together  they  produce  stability  in  human 
society.  Government  from  a  center  is  always  dan- 
gerous when  that  center  is  too  far  removed  from 
its  circumference.  The  democratic  social  move- 
ment insists  upon  the  principle  of  community  in- 
dependence as  essential  to  its  strength.  It  also 
insists  upon  federation  as  necessary  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  community  against  outside  aggres- 
sion. The  political  party  of  the  working-class  calls 
itself  the  democratic  social  party,  because  democ- 
racy and  socialism  are  mutually  dependent.  De- 
mocracy by  itself  is  chaos.  Each  individual  of  the 
demos  struggling  with  every  other  individual  leads 
to  a  scramble  that  is  disgraceful  to  humanity  and 
that  disturbs  the  peace  and  makes  decent  living 
impossible.  Pure  democracy  tends  inevitably  to 
imperialism.     The  people,  tired  of  bickering,  sur- 


WOKKING-CLASS  POLITICS  279 

render  themselves  into  the  control  of  a  master. 
Pure  socialism,  on  the  other  hand,  is  tyranny.  If 
the  social  powers  are  in  the  control  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  that  government  in  the  possession  of  a 
single  person  or  of  a  small  group  of  persons,  then 
every  act  of  socializing  is  an  infringement  upon 
the  liberties  of  the  people  and  a  hindrance  to  their 
prosperity.  The  only  danger  of  the  coming  social- 
ism is  that  it  may  be  thus  used  by  the  stronger  ele- 
ment as  a  means  of  oppressing  the  weaker.  The 
only  safety  for  a  socialized  community  is  that  it 
shall  be  democratic,  that  the  people  as  a  whole 
shall  have  control  and  keep  control  of  all  the  func- 
tions of  government.  Discussion  of  public  affairs 
day  by  day,  the  right  to  elect  and  recall  public 
officers,  the  right  to  vote  directly  on  all  public 
questions,  the  subordination  of  the  leader  to  the 
people  are  planks  in  the  platform  of  the  social  dem- 
ocratic party,  because  it  is  only  upon  such  a  plat- 
form that  socialism  can  stand.  When  one  studies 
the  politics  of  the  working-class  he  cannot  but  ad- 
mire the  wisdom  with  which  those  politics  are  in- 
formed. It  would  seem  as  if  these  truths  were  not 
the  outcome  of  mere  human  thinking,  but  of  what 
in  old  times  was  called  divine  revelation.  They 
have  in  them  the  vision  of  the  prophets  and  the  wis- 
dom of  the  sages.  They  are  fundamental  thinking 
upon  the  social  problem,  and  if  impracticable  they 


280      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

are  so  only  because  at  the  present  time  they  are 
not  in  accord  with  our  inherited  notions,  beliefs, 
and  habits  and  hence  the  people  cannot  comprehend 
them.  It  may  be  that  for  some  time  it  will  not  be 
possible  to  apply  these  principles  in  their  sim- 
plicity directly  to  the  affairs  of  human  society. 
But  society  must  conform  more  and  more  to  the 
ideal  of  the  working-class  until  it  has  transformed 
society  into  its  own  likeness.  Society  as  it  now 
exists  is  unreasonable,  illogical,  insane.  If  man 
is  to  go  forward,  society  must  be  just  the  opposite 
of  all  this,  it  must  be  reasonable,  logical,  and  sane, 
and  if  this  good  time  is  ever  to  come  it  can  only 
be  when  men  obey  the  laws  of  social  adjustment 
enunciated  by  the  social  democratic  party  whereby 
that  which  we  call  justice  shall  be  at  last  estab- 
lished on  earth.  It  has  come  to  pass  to-day  as  it 
came  to  pass  in  old  times,  that  these  necessary 
things  have  been  hidden  from  the  wise  and  the 
prudent  and  have  been  revealed  unto  babes.  The 
statesman,  the  professor,  the  preacher,  is  ignorant 
of  them,  but  they  have  been  made  known  to  the 
worker  at  the  bench,  to  the  digger  in  the  ditch,  and 
to  the  toiler  in  the  mine.  And  because  of  this,  the 
governing  powers  of  the  world  are  passing  to-day 
from  the  one  class  to  the  other. 


XII 

WORKING-CLASS  PHILOSOPHY 

THE  working-class  movement  is  based  upon  a 
philosophy  of  history,  which  both  its  friends 
and  its  enemies  agree  in  describing  by  the  word 
materialistic.  The  enemy  of  the  movement  cries 
to  its  supporter  with  scorn :  "  You  are  a  material- 
ist," and  an  advocate  of  the  movement  answers 
with  pride :  "  You  are  right,  I  am  a  materialist." 
This  confession  on  the  part  of  the  working-man 
at  once  brings  on  him  the  odium  of  the  unthinking 
crowd.  Materialism  is  in  bad  odor,  and  one  who 
professes  it  is  excommunicated  by  the  orthodox 
philosophies.  The  man  in  the  street  has  been 
taught  to  think  that  a  materialist  is  a  low  fellow, 
indulging  freely  in  his  grosser  appetites,  whose 
mind  is  set  on  earthly  things,  whose  god  is  his 
belly,  whose  energies  are  expended  in  the  acquisi- 
tion of  gold  and  silver  and  houses  and  lands  and 
cattle  and  sheep  and  women. 

The  materialist  is  set  over  against  the  idealist, 
who  is  supposed  to  be  thinking  of  the  higher  values, 
whose  heart  is  expanding  with  love  for  the  beauti- 
ful and  the  good  and  the  great.     The  idealist  sac- 

281 


282      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

rifices  himself  to  his  ideal.  He  will  give  his  life 
for  his  cause.  He  will  starve  in  the  interests  of 
the  truth.  For  this  reason  the  working-class 
movement  has  come  under  the  ban  of  many  well- 
meaning,  right-thinking  people.  The  success  of 
that  movement  is  looked  upon  as  the  end  of  all 
things  that  makes  life  worth  the  living.  The  so- 
cialistic state  is  pictured  as  one  wherein  all  those 
things  that  now  go  to  make  up  the  beauty  of  life 
and  its  glory  will  be  lacking.  A  sordid,  degraded 
population  will  fill  the  world,  not  having  a 
thought  above  its  eating  and  its  drinking.  The 
philosophy  of  the  working-class  movement  is  de- 
clared to  be  the  philosophy  of  the  stomach,  and  as 
such  it  calls  for  the  derision  of  all  who  to-day 
think  in  terms  of  the  intellect  and  of  the  heart. 

But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  present  order  which 
the  working-class  movement  is  seeking  to  overturn, 
that  it  may  rebuild  society  after  its  own  conception, 
is  the  most  intensely  materialistic  known  to  the 
history  of  the  world.  Never  before  has  the  busi- 
ness of  living  been  so  frankly  and  outspokenly  ma- 
terialistic. Our  modern  system  of  industry  has 
murdered  idealism.  It  has  no  place  for  it  in  its 
scheme.  The  higher  values  of  life  are  subordinated 
without  pity  and  without  remorse  to  the  lower  val- 
ues. The  soul  of  a  girl  is  not  reckoned  when  it 
comes  to  a  matter  of  profits.     Beauty  is  sacrificed 


WORKING-CLASS  PHILOSOrHY  283 

every  day  to  the  most  crass  utility.  Ugliness  has 
driven  comeliness  out  of  the  lives  of  the  people,  and 
we  have  to-day  a  civilization  resulting  in  the  hor- 
rors of  the  slums,  the  unthinkable  profanation  of 
womanhood,  and  the  degradation  of  manhood.  No 
possible  scheme  of  life  could  be  more  materialistic, 
in  the  moral  sense  of  that  word,  than  the  one  under 
which  we  are  now  living.  The  full-fed  business 
man  whose  protruding  abdomen  will  not  suffer  him 
to  see  his  own  feet,  will  cry  out  to  the  lean  and 
hungry  working-class  agitator :  "  You  are  a  ma- 
terialist," and  the  agitator  drawing  his  belt  more 
tightly  about  his  hungry  body,  will  say  proudly : 
"  You  are  right,  I  am  a  materialist." 

We  have  here  an  example  of  that  confusion  of 
thought  which  as  the  Duke  of  Argyle  says,  in  the 
Reign  of  Law,  "  is  constantly  hiding  and  breeding 
under  confusion  of  language."  The  working-class 
philosopher  is  using  the  word  materialist  in  its 
purely  philosophic  sense,  while  his  opponent  is  em- 
ploying the  word  in  its  more  popular  and  moral 
meaning.  In  reality  the  working-class  movement 
is  one  of  the  most  idealistic  in  the  history  of  the 
world ;  to  find  its  parallel  in  this  respect  one  must 
go  back  to  early  Christianity  or  to  any  one  of  the 
great  religious  movements  of  humanity  that  have 
been  for  the  time  being  the  salvation  of  the  world. 
If  by  an  idealist  we  mean  a  man  who  dreams  and 


284      THE  KISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

sees  visions,  a  man  who  will  by  no  means  be  con- 
tent with  things  as  they  are,  but  who  will  expend 
his  energies  for  the  betterment  of  mankind,  one 
who  sacrifices  his  temporal  welfare  to  his  eternal 
interests,  who  lives  for  a  cause  and  will  die  for  a 
cause,  then  the  working-class  movement  is  ideal- 
istic to  the  very  core.  It  has  had  its  martyrs  and 
its  confessors,  and  to-day  it  is  enlisting  in  its  serv- 
ice the  greatest  souls  living  on  the  Earth.  Men  are 
forsaking  houses  and  lands  and  kindred,  are 
placing  all  things  at  risk,  because  they  believe  that 
they  find  in  this  the  great  movement  of  the  work- 
ing-class, the  only  present  hope  of  humanity.  The 
heart  is  stirred  by  the  sight  of  the  misery  under 
which  the  mass  of  mankind  are  stumbling  along 
the  way  of  life.  In  the  present  industrial  order 
it  sees  the  cause  of  that  misery  and  in  the  demo- 
cratic social  movement  the  only  hope  of  lifting  the 
burden  from  the  breaking  back  and  giving  hope  to 
the  breaking  heart.  That  such  a  movement  as  this 
should  be  condemned  as  materialistic  is  one  of  the 
ironies  of  fate.  That  it  should  proudly  claim  to 
be  materialistic  is  one  of  the  strange  anomalies  of 
human  thinking. 

That  we  may  clear  away  this  obscurity,  we  must 
define  our  words  and  the  best  definition  of  a  word 
is  a  description.  Astronomy  is  a  materialistic 
philosophy  of   the   heavens.     It   accounts   for   the 


WORKING-CLASS  PHILOSOPHY  285 

place  of  the  various  heavenly  bodies,  their  move- 
ments, and  their  history;  within  the  heavenly  bod- 
ies themselves,  it  does  not  call  into  play  any  force 
outside  of  those  bodies  and  their  material  elements. 
It  will  calculate  an  eclipse  with  perfect  accuracy, 
because  it  knows  the  laws  that  govern  these  vari- 
ous bodies  in  their  movements  through  space.  And 
these  laws,  so  called,  are  not  enactments  of  some 
outside  will  forcing  these  various  bodies  to  follow 
a  given  course,  but  they  are  the  habits  of  the  very 
bodies  themselves.  The  law  of  motion,  the  law  of 
gravitation,  were  not  written  in  any  code  of  any 
god  or  man.  They  are  simply  the  mode  or  habit 
of  action  which  we  find  in  these  bodies.  When  the 
great  astronomer  La  Place  expounded  his  nebular 
theory  some  one  told  him  that  there  was  in  that 
theory  no  place  for  God.  His  answer  was :  "  I  do 
not  require  any  such  person  for  the  validity  of  my 
hypothesis."  Astronomy  is  then  simply  a  material- 
istic explanation  of  the  heavens,  and  as  such  it  is 
an  exact  science  and  of  infinite  use  to  mankind. 

The  same  is  true  of  geology.  It  is  a  material- 
istic philosophy  of  the  earth.  It  explains  all  the 
various  present  formations  of  the  earth  from  their 
past  history.  It  does  not  ask  for  any  intervention 
from  the  outside  in  order  to  tell  the  story  of  the 
continents  and  the  seas.  Frost  and  fire,  the  action 
of  water  and  the  interplay  of  these  is  sufficient  to 


286      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

account  for  the  building-up  and  the  breaking-down 
of  continents,  the  formation  of  the  rocks,  and  the 
breaking-up  again  of  the  rocks  into  sand  and  the 
transformation  of  sand  into  soil. 

Biology  likewise  is  a  materialistic  conception  of 
the  history  of  life  upon  the  earth.  It  discards  al- 
together the  ancient  notion  that  each  form  of  life 
now  existing  had  its  origin  in  the  spiritual  act  of 
some  great  being  outside  the  life  order  itself.  It 
looks  upon  the  story  of  creation,  as  that  story  is 
found  in  Genesis,  as  nothing  but  a  story,  having 
no  basis  whatever  in  matter  of  fact.  It  declares 
that  all  of  the  present  forms  of  life  to  be  found 
upon  the  earth  have  been  the  outcome  of  the  play 
and  interplay  of  natural  forces.  That  each  species 
is  not  a  special  creation,  but  the  outgrowth  of 
earlier  forms  of  life.  This  science  declares  that 
the  relation  of  the  food-supply  to  the  various  ani- 
mal existences  has  had  much  to  do  with  changing 
the  forms  in  which  life  has  manifested  itself.  Spe- 
cies have  come  into  being  and  have  passed  away 
under  the  stress  of  a  struggle  for  existence.  The 
stronger  have  survived  and  the  weaker  have  per- 
ished. In  all  this,  biology  is  purely  materialistic 
in  the  philosophic  conception  of  that  word. 

No  one  to-day  cries  "  shame  "  upon  the  astron- 
omer, upon  the  geologist,  or  upon  the  biologist. 
They  did,  each  one  in  his  turn,  incur  the  odium  of 


WORKING-CLASS  PHILOSOPHY  287 

the  idealistic  philosopher.  They  were,  each  one  of 
them  iu  his  clay,  cursed  with  book,  bell,  and  candle 
by  the  theologian,  but  they  have  outlived  this  odium 
and  to-day  they  stand  upon  a  pedestal  of  honor 
and  they  who  once  cursed  them  now  bow  down  to 
them  and  come  to  receive  from  them  the  wisdom 
that  man  must  have  in  order  to  live  sanely  in  the 
world.  The  great  names  of  astronomy,  geology, 
and  biology  are  now  written  upon  the  scrolls  of 
immortal  fame.  Copernicus,  Galileo,  Giordano 
Bruno  have  survived  the  curses  of  the  priests  and 
the  condemnation  of  the  schoolmen,  and  their 
teaching  to-day  is  accepted  by  all  the  world.  The 
same  is  true  of  all  the  great  men  of  geology  and 
biology.  Darwin,  at  first  excommunicated  by 
priests  and  scholars,  lived  to  see  his  doctrine  of 
evolution  universally  accepted  and,  although  at  the 
time  of  his  death  he  was  not  a  believer  in  doctrinal 
Christianity,  he  nevertheless  was  buried  with  full 
honors  in  the  great  Christian  temple  at  West- 
minster. 

The  working-class  philosophy,  which  is  simply  a 
scientific  interpretation  of  history,  is  to-day  suffer- 
ing from  the  condemnation  of  the  world,  just  as 
the  other  great  philosophies  and  sciences  did  in 
their  day.  Economic  Determinism  is  nothing  else 
than  an  endeavor  to  account  for  the  changes  which 
have  occurred  in  the  structure  of  society  by  nat- 


288      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

ural  causes.  The  scientific  investigator  discovers 
that  these  changes  have  been  determined  very 
largely  by  the  food-supply,  including  in  the  term 
food  all  that  man  needs  to  sustain  himself  in  his 
present  existence.  Any  great  change  in  the  method 
of  procuring  the  food-supply  has  been  followed  by 
a  change  in  the  social  structure.  In  the  earliest 
period  man  had  to  depend  upon  his  hands  to  feed 
his  mouth.  He  had  to  dig  up  the  roots  with  his 
fingers  and  pluck  them  with  his  hands.  He  had 
also  to  rely  upon  the  swiftness  of  his  feet  to  escape 
from  his  enemy.  Under  these  conditions,  man  was 
and  could  be  nothing  but  an  animal,  differing  from 
other  animals  simply  by  the  fact  that  he  had  as- 
sumed the  upright  position  and  had  evolved  the 
hand.  But  this  was  an  enormous  difference.  By 
reason  of  these  variations  man  became  a  distinct 
species  and  began  his  career  upon  the  earth.  But 
as  long  as  he  had  only  his  hands  and  his  feet  to 
work  with,  he  had  to  live  literally  from  hand  to 
mouth;  his  existence  was  that  of  a  horde  of  wild 
animals,  herded  together  by  the  natural  instincts 
of  fear  and  lust. 

The  length  of  infancy,  differentiating  the  human 
from  the  non-human  species,  caused  a  division  of 
labor  on  the  plane  of  sex.  The  mother  was  com- 
pelled to  give  her  time  and  her  strength  to  her 
young  for  a  considerable  period.     She  was  com- 


WORKING-CLASS  PHILOSOPHY  289 

pelled  to  make  a  borne  and  in  the  making  of  the 
home  she  discovered  the  properties  of  fire.  She 
became  a  cook.  This  fact  at  once  brought  about  a 
great  structural  revolution  in  human  society. 
With  the  domestication  of  fire,  fish  entered  into 
the  larder  of  mankind.  The  dispersion  of  the  race 
followed.  Men  wandered  along  the  water-courses 
and  dared  the  seas,  in  order  that  they  might  catch 
fish  to  eat.  The  importance  of  the  woman  was 
magnified  when  she  became  the  mistress  of  the 
hearth.  She  was  the  keeper  of  the  fire,  and  life 
was  organized  with  the  woman  as  its  central  and 
controlling  force.  The  first  formation  of  society 
was  upon  the  principle  of  sex,  and  humanity  passed 
from  the  structureless  horde  into  the  well-articu- 
lated tribe.  The  invention  of  the  bow  and  arrow 
following  the  domestication  of  fire  worked  in  the 
same  direction.  Men  wandered  through  the  for- 
ests in  search  of  game,  and  they  lost  one  another, 
and  in  that  way  became  strangers  to  one  another 
and  enemies  to  those  who  had  gone  in  a  different 
direction.  Kinship  was  the  controlling  factor  in 
the  gentile  organization.  The  tribes  lived  in  com- 
mon upon  that  which  the  various  members  of  the 
tribe  took  in  hunting  and  in  fishing.  Where  shel- 
ter was  required,  great  houses  were  built  or  tents 
set  up,  in  which  the  tribe  congregated.  This  tribal 
form  of  living  persisted  until  agriculture  became 


290      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

the  source  of  the  food-supply.  Then  land  had  a 
value,  and  the  captive  taken  in  war  was  enslaved 
in  order  that  he  might  work  upon  the  land  and 
grow  food  for  his  master.  The  family  with  its 
great  institution  of  slavery,  was  the  consequence 
of  the  discovery  of  the  science  and  arts  of  agricul- 
ture. The  families  merged  into  the  State  as  a 
necessary  means  of  protecting  themselves  and  their 
property  against  their  natural  enemies  who  were 
the  peoples  just  across  the  river  or  just  beyond 
the  hills.  The  great  migrations  which  brought  the 
Aryan  races  from  Asia  into  Europe  were  made 
necessary  because  of  the  multiplication  of  the  pop- 
ulation so  that  it  was  in  excess  of  the  food-supply. 
Those  races  swarmed  just  as  bees  swarm,  because 
they  could  no  longer  live  in  or  upon  the  fatherland. 
The  great  conquests  were  possible  only  when  the 
population  had  become  dense  in  certain  sections. 
The  two  considerable  centers  of  life  in  the  ancient 
world  were  the  Nile  Valley  and  the  Valleys  of 
the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates.  It  was  possible  in 
these  regions  to  support  a  dense  population,  and 
the  kings  ruling  over  these  countries  had  at  their 
command  vast  armies  of  men  with  which  to  make 
war  upon  one  another.  Even  a  few  instances  like 
these  are  enough  to  show  us  that  the  philosophy 
of  the  working-class  movement  is  not  that  bogy 
which  it  has  been  made  out  to  be.     It  is  just  the 


WORKING-CLASS  PHILOSOPHY  291 

plainest  possible  statement  of  the  causes  that  have 
produced  the  changes  in  the  structure  of  human 
society. 

Our  modern  world  is  proving  daily  the  principle 
of  Economic  Determinism.  The  invention  of  a 
new  machine  will  cause  a  social  displacement. 
The  opening  up  of  an  Indian  reservation  will  bring 
about  a  considerable  migration.  The  passing  of 
the  industries  from  under  the  roof  of  the  home  and 
their  massing  in  the  great  industrial  establishment 
has,  as  we  have  already  learned,  hopelessly  de- 
stroyed the  most  ancient  of  all  social  structures, 
the  family.  The  improvement  in  methods  of  inter- 
communication and  transportation  whereby  food- 
stuffs can  be  easily  moved  from  one  place  to  an- 
other, has  made  forever  unnecessary  and  almost 
impossible  the  famines  that  used  to  destroy  whole 
populations.  The  improved  methods  of  agricul- 
ture and  of  manufacturing  have  changed  the  state 
of  human  society  from  that  of  a  constant  deficit 
to  a  condition  of  surplus.  That  all  these  changes 
should  take  place  without  affecting  the  very  struc- 
ture of  human  society  is  impossible.  A  revolu- 
tion in  the  methods  of  procuring  and  distributing 
the  food-supply  demanded  a  corresponding  revolu- 
tion in  the  social  organization. 

The  social  unrest,  which  is  the  theme  to-day  of 
the  economist  and  the  social  worker,  calls  for  an 


292      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

explanation,  and  every  reason  under  the  sun  has 
been  given.  The  decay  of  loyalty,  of  parental  au- 
thority, of  respect  for  law,  the  rashness  of  youth, 
and  the  loss  of  womanliness  are  all  given  as  causes 
of  the  social  disease ;  whereas  they  are  simply  symp- 
toms or  effects.  The  cause  of  the  trouble  lies 
farther  back.  Loyalty  to  country  and  king  is  no 
longer  a  necessity,  because  country  and  king  to- 
day are  subordinated  to  a  greater  power.  Mere 
patriotism  at  the  present  time  is  an  insolent  asser- 
tion that  our  country  is  better  than  your  country, 
and  our  rights  of  more  importance  than  your  rights. 
The  consciousness  of  country  which  is  the  basis  of 
patriotism  is  to-day  lost  in  the  larger  conscious- 
ness of  the  world  as  a  world.  Parental  authority 
has  gone  with  parental  responsibility.  The  fro- 
wardness  of  youth  is  required  by  the  demands  of 
the  market.  Our  boys  and  our  girls  must  sell  their 
labor  in  the  streets  and  they  must  acquire  smart- 
ness very  early  in  order  to  make  the  best  bargain. 
The  woman  can  no  longer  persuade  herself  that  she 
is  a  sensitive  plant  to  be  kept  under  glass,  when 
in  fact  she  is  compelled  to  hustle  out  in  the  morn- 
ing to  work  and  in  the  evening  plod  her  weary  way 
homeward  after  a  day  spent  in  the  soil  and  toil 
of  the  office  and  the  mill. 

What  the  working-class  philosopher  calls  learn- 
edly Economic  Determinism  is  the  efficient  cause 


WORKING-CLASS  PHILOSOPHY  293 

of  all  these  evils.  It  is  the  struggle  for  existence, 
the  fight  for  bread,  that  is  behind  and  commanding 
the  battle.  Economic  Determinism  might  well  be 
personified  as  a  grim  giant  driving  humanity  on- 
ward, compelling  it  to  adapt  itself  to  ever  new 
conditions,  sacrificing  the  most  sacred  and  ancient 
of  beliefs,  habits,  customs  to  the  insatiable  maw 
that  must  have  food  to  fill  it,  else  man  himself 
must  perish. 

It  is  the  custom  of  the  idealist  to  decry  the 
stomach,  to  speak  of  it  in  contemptuous  terms,  and 
we  have  to-day  a  vast  number  of  people  who  have 
little  or  nothing  that  is  good  to  say  of  this  organ. 
And  they  cry  out  against  the  working-man  because 
his  philosophy  takes  the  stomach  into  considera- 
tion. But  we  observe  that  these  same  idealists  in 
their  practice  are  very  careful  to  give  to  the  stom- 
ach what  is  due  to  the  stomach.  They  can  afford 
to  despise  it,  because  they  keep  it  always  well  filled. 
The  greatest  idealist  of  them  all,  Plato,  did  the 
most  of  his  idealizing  at  the  banquet  board,  eating 
and  drinking  of  the  best  with  the  sports  of  Athens. 
And  the  doctors,  the  teachers,  and  even  the  editors 
who  speak  so  eloquently  of  the  beauties  of  idealism, 
and  have  nothing  but  bitter  contempt  for  the  ma- 
terialism of  the  poor  working-man,  eat  and  drink 
and  wear  the  best  that  their  purse  will  buy.  If 
the  rulers  who  sit  above,  guiding  the  destinies  of 


294      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

mankind  and  watching  the  pranks  that  men  play 
upon  the  earth,  have  any  sense  of  humor  they  must 
split  their  sides  with  laughter  as  they  hear  some 
twenty-five  thousand  dollar  preacher  in  his  carved 
pulpit,  beneath  his  fretted  roof,  preaching  the  doc- 
trine of  idealism,  expounding  the  beauty  of  sacri- 
fice, laying  stress  on  the  great  value  of  love  and 
joy  and  peace  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  crying  out  against 
any  anxiety  in  the  matter  of  food  and  raiment  and 
shelter;  while  just  outside  his  church  on  a  soap- 
box is  some  forlorn,  half-starved  advocate  of  ma- 
terialism, exalting  food  and  clothing  and  shelter 
as  good  things  in  life,  speaking  with  contempt  of 
an  idealism  that  leaves  these  out  of  account. 
Neither  of  these  preachers  practises  his  preach- 
ment. The  idealist  in  the  pulpit  is  a  materialist 
at  the  dinner-table,  the  materialist  on  the  soap-box 
is  perforce  an  idealist  at  supper-time. 

The  philosophy  of  socialism  asserts  that  the  di- 
gestive apparatus  of  man  is  quite  as  wonderful  and 
even  more  necessary  than  the  thinking  organ  of  the 
human  being.  Before  nature  could  construct  a 
brain  it  had  to  devise  a  stomach  and  in  that  won- 
derful chemical  laboratory,  it  had  to  carry  on  the 
work  of  changing  the  lower  organic  matter  of  the 
plant  and  the  animal  into  the  higher  organic  mat- 
ter necessary  for  the  uses  of  the  human  being. 
This  operation  that  goes  on  within  the  stomach 


WORKING-CLASS  PHILOSOPHY  295 

is  quite  as  wonderful  in  its  way  as  anything  that 
transpires  within  the  brain.  The  changing  of  food- 
stuff into  blood  and  bone  and  muscle  and  nerve, 
which  is  primarily  the  work  of  the  stomach,  is  as 
mysterious  as  the  transformation  of  brain-cells 
into  thought.  It  will  never  do  for  the  brain  or  the 
heart  to  despise  the  stomach,  to  treat  it  harshly, 
to  deprive  it  of  what  it  needs  in  order  to  do  its 
work.  If  this  the  so-called  lower  function  is  neg- 
lected, the  higher  operations  soon  come  to  naught. 
If  a  man  will  give  due  attention  to  his  digestion, 
his  thinking  will  take  care  of  itself. 

We  have  discovered  that  backward  children  owe 
their  disadvantage  to  the  fact  that  they  have  not 
been  properly  nourished.  Scarcity  of  food  is  to 
blame  for  much  of  the  stupidity  and  crime  that  is 
in  the  world.  The  working-class  is  on  a  lower 
intellectual  level  because  it  has  not  been  nourished 
sufficiently  to  enable  it  to  do  both  its  work  and  its 
thinking.  All  the  great  leaders  of  men  have  been 
well  set  up,  have  had  sufficient  nourishing  food 
and  we  can  never  have  a  noble  race  of  men  and 
women  except  we  have  a  well-fed  race.  Over- 
eating and  under-eating  are  to  blame  for  at  least 
ninety  per  cent  of  all  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to. 
A  philosophy  of  life  which  lays  stress  upon  these 
facts  is  not  one  that  mankind  can  at  present  afford 
to  despise. 


296      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

The  working-class  philosopher  in  his  own  lan- 
guage has  the  philosophies  of  the  churches  and  the 
schools  beat  to  a  standstill.  He  knows  what  he  is 
talking  about.  They  are  in  a  large  measure  talk- 
ing of  things  which  they  have  not  seen,  and  cannot 
see.  The  Elysian  Fields  of  the  preacher  lie  out- 
side the  bourne  of  time  and  place.  The  ideal  goods 
of  the  philosopher  exist  only  in  the  brain  of  the 
philosopher.  They  butter  no  parsnips.  As  the 
working-class  philosopher  listens  to  them,  he  says : 
"  Gentlemen,  you  are  very  eloquent,  your  language 
is  fine,  your  gestures  perfect,  but  what  I  want  to 
know  is  how  I  am  going  to  get  my  dinner.  If  you 
can't  tell  me  that,  then  your  preaching  is  vain, 
because  at  present  my  existence  depends  upon  my 
getting  a  dinner.  If  that  is  delayed  too  long,  I 
am  snuffed  out.  So  come  down  from  your  exalted 
place,  come  out  from  your  mysterious  chamber,  and 
tell  me  how  to  make  a  living." 

The  working-class  philosophy  does  not  stop  at 
the  stomach.  It  goes  on  and  demands  proper  food 
for  the  brain  and  for  the  heart.  It  teaches  that 
the  stomach  is  the  laboratory  where  the  stuff  is 
prepared  that  the  brain  must  use  in  thinking  and 
the  heart  in  feeling.  And  the  condemnation  which 
the  working-class  philosopher  passes  upon  the  pres- 
ent system  and  its  philosophy  is  that  it  does  not 
satisfy  the  head-hunger  and  the  heart-hunger  of 


WORKING-CLASS  PHILOSOPHY  297 

the  working-class.  The  working-man  desires  to 
think  just  as  much  as  the  man  above  him,  but  the 
blood  that  is  sent  from  his  heart  to  his  brain  is  not 
rich  in  brain-stuff,  it  does  not  feed  the  great  think- 
ing organs  and  he  is  condemned  to  brain-starvation 
and  as  a  consequence  his  brain  perishes;  and  he, 
instead  of  being  able  to  enter  into  the  great  world 
of  thought  and  exercise  himself  therein  and  specu- 
late on  what  may  lie  beyond  and  behind  his  Eco- 
nomic Determinism,  is  condemned  to  intellectual 
poverty.  He  has  only  the  bare  necessities  of  the 
intellectual  life,  its  luxuries  are  beyond  him.  He 
cannot  indulge  in  the  higher  emotions  of  love  as 
he  would  because,  again,  his  blood  is  not  full 
enough,  nor  rich  enough  to  flow  out  of  his  heart  in 
a  great  tide  of  overmastering  emotion.  He  starves 
in  his  affections.  The  constant  struggle  to  keep 
a  little  food  in  his  stomach  exhausts  him;  and  if 
he  makes  love,  it  is  only  after  a  brutal  fashion. 
He  has  not  the  strength  to  play  the  lover  on  the 
grand  scale.  It  is  the  glory  of  the  human  stomach 
that  within  its  laboratories  it  changes  the  substance 
of  the  potato,  the  bean,  and  the  apple  into  the  sub- 
stance of  the  brain  of  a  Shakespeare,  a  Newton, 
and  a  Darwin,  and  that  it  transubstantiates  these 
same  substances  into  the  high  emotions  of  a  Jesus, 
a  Gautama,  and  a  St.  Francis.  Economic  Deter- 
minism declares  that  all  creation  works  together 


298      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

to  bring  to  pass  these  marvels.  The  sun  shines, 
the  rain  falls,  the  seed  germinates,  the  grass  grows, 
in  order  that  man  may  eat  and  drink  and  live. 
And  just  as  he  eats  and  drinks  and  lives  wisely, 
so  will  he  go  on  from  strength  to  strength  until 
he  comes  to  the  fullness  of  the  stature  of  the  sons 
of  God.  When  we  despise  materialism,  we  are 
pouring  contempt  on  the  heavens  above,  on  the 
earth  beneath,  and  into  the  waters  under  the  earth, 
for  these  are  all  material,  in  the  sense  in  which 
that  word  is  commonly  used.  But  they  are  like- 
wise spiritual,  if  we  use  that  word  to  describe 
them.  In  fact,  the  antagonism  between  idealism 
and  materialism,  between  spiritualism  and  ma- 
terialism, are  matters  of  words  more  than  matters 
of  fact.  The  working-class  philosopher  who  de- 
cries idealism  practises  it.  He  who  asserts  that 
Economic  Determinism  is  the  only  force;  and  that 
a  man  in  all  his  actions  is  controlled  by  his  ma- 
terial interests,  is  himself  an  argument  destroying 
his  own  contentions.  Karl  Marx  in  the  interest  of 
Economic  Determinism  sacrificed  his  economic  in- 
terests. A  host  of  men  have  gone  to  prison  and 
lived  on  prison  fare  to  prove  that  man  is  altogether 
under  the  power  of  his  material  interests.  All  this 
goes  to  prove  that  no  philosophy  is  sufficient  to 
explain  the  life  of  man,  much  less  the  infinite  uni- 
verse, and  all  philosophers  can  only  look  to  their 


WOEKING-CLASS  PHILOSOPHY  299 

philosophy  for  a  momentary  view  of  that  which 
is  forever  passing  beyond  and  away  from  their 
philosophic  sight. 

This  does  not,  however,  detract  in  the  least  from 
those  philosophic  systems  which  man  has  formu- 
lated the  honor  that  is  due  to  them.  Man  must 
have  some  explanation  of  the  universe  in  which  he 
lives,  and  as  he  cannot  make  a  perfect  explanation, 
he  is  compelled  to  put  up  with  the  best  that  he  can 
devise.  And  if  his  effort  does  give  him  a  working 
scheme,  then  it  is  invaluable.  Economic  Deter- 
minism does  explain  the  structural  changes  that 
have  taken  place  in  society.  It  does  point  the  way 
that  man  must  go  in  order  to  obtain  social  peace. 
Because  of  this,  Economic  Determinism  deserves 
to  stand  and  will  always  stand  as  one  of  the  great 
intellectual  achievements  of  the  human  mind. 

Neither  Evolution  nor  Economic  Determinism 
pretend  to  answer  the  ultimate  question  as  to  the 
origin  of  the  universe.  Whether  that  is  the  prod- 
uct of  intelligence,  conscious  and  determining,  or 
whether  what  is  always  has  been  and  always  will 
be,  whether  things  are  worked  out  according  to  a 
plan  or  at  haphazard,  whether  the  force  of  the  uni- 
verse is  a  push  or  a  pull,  lies  outside  the  sphere  of 
Economic  Determinism  as  of  any  other  scientific 
theory.  Such  theories  deal  only  with  facts  that 
come  within  the  range  of  the  mind  of  man.     It  is 


300       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

open  to  any  mind  to  choose  its  own  belief  concern- 
ing what  lies  beyond  the  power  of  the  human  in- 
telligence to  either  know  or  comprehend. 

It  is  possible  for  many  minds  to  hold  in  this 
sphere  of  belief  antagonistic  propositions.  One 
can  believe  that  the  present  order  of  things  has 
come  to  pass  through  a  fortuitous  course  of  cir- 
cumstances and  yet  can  hold  that  these  accidents 
themselves  are  in  accordance  with  a  divine  plan. 

This  possibility  of  combining  both  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural  in  a  common  creed,  is  set 
forth  with  great  clearness  by  Morgan  in  the  last 
paragraph  of  Ancient  Society.  This  great  writer 
says :  "  It  must  be  regarded  as  a  marvelous  fact 
that  a  portion  of  mankind  five  thousand  years  ago, 
less  or  more,  attained  to  civilization.  In  strict- 
ness but  two  families,  the  Semitic  and  the  Aryan, 
accomplished  the  work  through  unassisted  self- 
development.  The  Aryan  family  represents  the 
central  stream  of  human  progress,  because  it  pro- 
duced the  highest  type  of  mankind,  and  because 
it  has  proved  its  intrinsic  superiority  by  gradually 
assuming  the  control  of  the  earth.  And  yet  civ- 
ilization must  be  regarded  as  an  accident  of  cir- 
cumstances. Its  attainment  at  some  time  was  cer- 
tain; but  that  it  should  have  been  accomplished 
when  it  was,  is  still  an  extraordinary  fact.  The 
hindrances  that  held  mankind  in  savagery  were 


WOEKING-CLASS  PHILOSOPHY  301 

great  and  surmounted  with  difficulty.  After 
reaching  the  middle  status  of  barbarism,  civiliza- 
tion hung  in  the  balance  while  the  barbarians  were 
feeling  their  way  by  experiments  with  the  native 
metals  toward  the  process  of  smelting  iron-ore. 
Until  iron  and  its  uses  were  known,  civilization 
•was  impossible.  If  mankind  had  failed  to  the 
present  hour  to  cross  this  barrier,  it  would  have 
afforded  no  just  cause  for  surprise.  When  we 
recognize  the  duration  of  man's  existence  upon  the 
Earth,  the  wide  vicissitudes  through  which  he  has 
passed  in  savagery  and  in  barbarism,  and  the 
progress  he  was  compelled  to  make,  civilization 
might  as  naturally  have  been  delayed  for  several 
thousand  years  in  the  future,  as  to  have  occurred 
when  it  did  in  the  good  providence  of  God.  We 
are  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  the  result 
as  to  the  time  of  its  achievement  of  a  series  of  for- 
tuitous circumstances.  It  may  well  serve  to  re- 
mind us  that  we  owe  our  present  condition  with  its 
multiplied  means  of  safety  and  of  happiness  to  the 
struggles,  the  sufferings,  the  heroic  exertions,  to 
the  patient  toil  of  our  barbarous  and,  more  re- 
motely, of  our  savage  ancestors.  Their  labors, 
their  trials,  and  their  successes,  were  a  part  of  the 
plan  of  the  Supreme  Intelligence  to  develop  a  bar- 
barian out  of  the  savage  and  a  civilized  man  out 
of  this  barbarian." 


302      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

This  utterance  of  Morgan,  who  was  a  devout 
Christian,  proves  that  a  man  can  be  a  scientific 
student  of  nature  and  society,  accept  without  reser- 
vation the  conclusions  of  science  and  still  hold 
to  any  belief  concerning  that  which  lies  outside  the 
realm  of  science  which  may  please  his  fancy. 
There  is  no  necessary  conflict  between  Economic 
Determinism  and  any  religion  from  the  lowest 
fetichism  up  to  the  highest  form  of  Christianity. 


XIII 

THE  COMING   AGE 

SOME  two  thousand  years  ago,  more  or  less,  a 
little,  insignificant  Jew  writing  to  a  company 
of  obscure  folk  gathered  together  in  an  upper-room, 
said  to  them,  concerning  himself  and  them :  "  We 
are  they  upon  whom  the  ends  of  the  world  are 
come."  This  little  Jew  was  convinced  in  his  own 
mind  and  he  succeeded  in  convincing  his  disciples 
that  he  and  they  were  at  the  end  of  one  great 
cycle  of  human  living  and  at  the  beginning  of  an- 
other. He  declared  that  old  things  were  passing 
away,  and  that  all  things  were  becoming  new.  By 
a  revolutionary  act  of  his  will  he  cut  himself  loose 
from  his  own  past  and  from  the  past  of  his  people, 
and  attached  himself  to  the  future.  At  the  time 
of  his  writing  this  Jew  was  but  little  known  to  the 
great  world  in  which  he  lived;  and  so  far  as  he 
was  known  to  his  immediate  friends  and  neighbors, 
they  for  the  most  part  hated  him  as  a  traitor  and 
despised  him  as  a  fool.  And  yet  time  has  justified 
the  forecasts  of  Paul.  He  was  at  the  end  of  one 
era  of  human  living  and  at  the  beginning  of  an- 
other, and  he  was  himself  largely  instrumental  in 

303 


304      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

bringing  about  the  change  that  he  prophesied.  To- 
day we  date  the  years  from  that  Jesus  whom  Paul 
preached  and  in  whom  Paul  saw  the  creative  en- 
ergy of  the  new  age.  The  world  in  the  midst  of 
which  Paul  was  living,  with  its  empires,  its  tem- 
ples, its  kings,  and  its  gods,  has  passed  away  and 
a  new  world  has  come  in  its  stead. 

If  we  had  asked  Paul  and  his  fellow-workers 
upon  what  they  based  their  assertion  that  the  world 
that  then  was  must  come  to  an  end  and  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth  take  the  place  of  the  old, 
he,  according  to  his  times  and  its  way  of  think- 
ing, would  have  answered  that  the  word  of  God 
had  declared  this  unto  him.  It  was  a  revelation 
from  on  high.  But  Paul  himself  in  his  writings 
gives  us  a  clue  to  the  natural  causes  that  were 
bringing  about  the  dissolution  of  that  ancient  so- 
ciety. Speaking  of  the  Roman  world,  the  apostle 
says :  "  Wherefore  God  gave  them  up  in  the  lusts 
of  their  hearts  unto  uncleanness,  that  their  bodies 
should  be  dishonored  among  themselves;  for  that 
they  exchanged  the  truth  of  God  for  a  lie,  for  this 
cause  God  gave  them  up  unto  vile  passions;  for 
their  women  changed  the  natural  use  into  that 
which  is  against  nature ;  and  likewise  also  the  men, 
leaving  the  natural  use  of  the  woman,  burned  in 
their  lust  one  toward  another,  men  with  men,  work- 
ing unseemliness  and  receiving  in  themselves  that 


THE  COMING  AGE  305 

recompense  of  their  error  which  was  due.  And 
even  as  they  refused  to  have  God  in  their  knowl- 
edge, God  gave  them  up  unto  a  reprobate  mind, 
to  do  those  things  which  are  not  fitting ;  being  filled 
with  all  unrighteousness,  wickedness,  covetousness, 
full  of  envy,  murder,  strife,  deceit,  malignity; 
whisperers,  backbiters,  hateful  to  God,  insolent, 
haughty,  boastful,  in  venters  of  evil  things,  disobedi- 
ent to  parents,  without  understanding,  covenant- 
breakers,  without  natural  affection,  unmerciful; 
who  knowing  the  ordinance  of  God,  that  they  which 
practise  such  things  are  worthy  of  death,  not  only 
do  the  same,  but  also  consent  with  them  that  prac- 
tise them." 

In  this  bitter  passage,  the  apostle  generalizes 
the  impression  that  was  made  upon  all  thinking 
minds  by  the  conditions  prevailing  in  society  in 
his  time.  The  Claudian  Julian  family  was  giving 
to  the  world  such  emperors  as  Caius,  Claudius,  and 
Nero,  and  the  abominations  of  the  palace  were  re- 
peated in  all  the  houses  of  the  patricians  and  the 
richer  plebeians  and  the  iniquities  of  the  imperial 
city  were  imitated  and  surpassed  by  the  great  cities 
of  Asia  and  Africa. 

The  old  nature-religions  were  not  merely  dying, 
they  were  dead.  The  great  Father  God  of  the 
Greek  Mythos  had  become  the  joke  of  the  wine- 
room;  the  ceremonies  of  religion  having  lost  their 


306      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

original  meaning  were  turned  into  vileness,  and 
the  chaste  goddess  Diana  became  the  patroness  of 
lewdness. 

The  Eoman  had  educated  himself  in  cruelty  by 
means  of  the  gladiatorial  shows,  and  he  practised 
that  cruelty  without  stint  in  every  province  of  the 
empire.  The  crucifixion  of  Jesus  was  not  a  soli- 
tary fact  in  the  history  of  his  time.  It  was  only 
one  of  innumerable  crucifixions  that  were  occurring 
on  almost  every  hilltop  and  at  every  roadside. 
That  society  was  then  in  the  throes  of  dissolution 
was  evident  to  every  clear-sighted  man. 

The  men  and  the  women  of  that  age,  who  would 
not  follow  the  multitude  to  do  evil,  had  to  seek 
the  solitary  places  of  the  country  or  to  bind  them- 
selves together  in  secret  societies  for  mutual  pro- 
tection. Such  Romans  as  Pliny  the  younger  chose 
to  abandon  society  and  politics  and  to  live  on  the 
farm  and  give  themselves  up  to  the  business  of 
writing  letters  and  books.  The  more  active  spirits 
endeavored  to  stay  the  process  of  corruption  by 
banding  together  in  philosophic  schools  and  re- 
ligious associations.  In  this  period  Epictetus 
taught  and  Peter  preached  to  the  people  of  Rome. 
But  all  these  efforts  were  sufficient  only  to  arrest 
the  course  of  the  disease:  they  could  not  cure  it. 
Slowly  but  surely  the  old  civilization  was  dying 
until  at  last  it  was  dead.     If  Paul  had  been  trained 


THE  COMING  AGE  307 

after  the  modern  methods  he  would  have  accounted 
for  his  belief  that  the  ends  of  the  world  were  upon 
him  by  stating  the  facts  as  he  saw  them  in  the  then 
existing  state  of  society. 

There  are  many  to-day  who  are  as  firmly  con- 
vinced as  was  Paul  in  his  day  that  they  are  living 
at  the  end  of  one  great  era  of  the  world's  history 
and  in  the  beginning  of  another.  They  prophesy 
just  as  confidently  as  did  the  apostle  that  old  things 
must  pass  away  and  all  things  become  new.  They 
are  convinced  that  the  present  order  is  changing. 
The  system  under  which  men  are  now  living  is  not 
merely  breaking,  it  has  broken  down.  It  is  quite 
impossible  that  men  should  continue  to  use  present 
methods,  as  these  methods  are  a  confessed  failure. 

Society  is  changing  its  base.  From  the  begin- 
ning of  civilization  down  to  the  present  time,  it 
has  been  a  fundamental  principle  that  it  is  the 
right  and  the  duty  of  the  strong  man  to  make  the 
wreak  man  work  for  him.  Civilization  has  been 
built  up  by  the  exploitation  of  the  weak  by  the 
strong.  The  God  of  this  present  world  has  always 
been  the  Napoleonic  God  of  the  strongest  battal- 
ions. Ancient  society  expressed  this  principle 
frankly  and  brutally  in  the  institution  of  slavery. 
It  was  then  considered  a  law  of  nature  that  the 
stronger  man  should  appropriate  to  his  uses  the 
strength  of  the  weaker  man.     We  cannot  fault  civ- 


308       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

ilization  because  of  this, —  it  was  a  necessary  step 
in  human  progress ;  but  it  is  well  for  us  to  remem- 
ber that  without  this  sacrifice  of  the  weak  to  the 
strong  all  that  we  call  civilization  could  never  have 
come  to  pass.  All  the  glory  of  Babylon  and  the 
strength  of  Egypt  and  the  beauty  and  wisdom  of 
Greece  and  the  splendor  of  Rome  were  built  upon 
slavery  as  a  foundation.  The  first  property  right 
that  man  legalized  was  his  right  to  the  ownership 
of  another  man.  From  the  statutes  of  Hammu- 
rabi down  to  the  slave  code  of  the  South,  as  we 
have  previously  remarked,  this  doctrine  of  the  right 
of  the  strong  to  exploit  the  weak  has  been  written 
over  and  over  again  into  the  laws  of  mankind. 

This  economic  principle,  while  perhaps  neces- 
sary at  the  beginnings  of  civilization,  has  always 
proved  fatal  in  the  end.  Every  ancient  civiliza- 
tion perished  because  it  did  not  incorporate  its 
people  into  its  social  and  political  life.  The  slave 
dragged  down  his  master  into  a  common  slavery. 
Nineveh,  Babylon,  Thebes,  Athens,  Carthage,  and 
Rome  perished  one  after  another  because  of  the 
evil  that  lurked  in  their  economic  system.  Slav- 
ery is  the  most  wasteful  of  all  modes  of  production. 
Many  of  the  letters  of  Pliny  the  Younger  dwell 
upon  this  wastefulness  of  slave  labor.  These  civ- 
ilizations were  the  prey  of  tribes  of  barbaric  free 
men. 


THE  COMING  AGE  309 

Serfdom,  which  was  an  advance  upon  slavery, 
giving  as  it  did  the  family  right  to  the  serf  —  and 
limited  independence  of  action,  was  the  economic 
system  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  great  nobles,  the 
priests,  and  the  kings  lived  upon  the  unrequited 
toil  of  the  peasant.  Because  of  this  the  peasantry 
wras  impoverished,  the  land  lay  unfilled,  and  Eu- 
rope was  forever  upon  the  verge  of  a  famine.  Ar- 
thur Young  in  his  description  of  the  condition  of 
France  just  prior  to  the  Revolution  makes  known 
to  us  the  utter  failure  of  the  system  of  production 
and  distribution  which  prevailed  at  that  time. 
The  starving  peasantry  were  already  beginning  to 
bestir  themselves,  to  band  together  in  secret,  and 
to  plot  the  destruction  of  that  form  of  society  which 
then  oppressed  them. 

In  modern  times,  we  have  a  system  of  exploita- 
tion more  perfect,  more  destructive  than  even  an- 
cient slavery  or  medieval  serfdom.  The  wage  sys- 
tem which  is  in  vogue  at  the  present  time  does  not 
even  look  upon  a  workman  as  a  slave  or  a  servant. 
It  does  not  give  him  even  so  much  of  humanity 
as  belonged  to  these  oppressed  classes  of  former 
times.  He  is  treated  as  if  he  were  impersonal  — 
without  body,  parts,  or  passions.  He  is  bought 
and  sold  in  the  market  as  so  much  labor-commod- 
ity. He  is  speeded  up  to  exhaustion  and  scrapped 
without  mercy.     He  is  given  but  a  small  j)ortion  of 


310       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

the  products  of  his  labor  and  is  subjected  to  living 
conditions  that  deplete  his  energies  and  arrest  his 
natural  development. 

The  consequence  of  the  present  system  is  seen 
in  all  our  great  industrial  centers.  Its  product  is 
the  slum  and  the  Great  White  Way.  It  brings 
forth  unspeakable  poverty  and  shameless  wealth. 
On  the  one  hand  there  are  the  millions  living  just 
above  and  far  below  the  line  of  sustenance  and 
there  are  the  few  hundred  thousand  rioting  in  lux- 
ury and  absorbing  the  labor-product  in  useless  dis- 
play and  wasteful  indulgence.  One  might  almost 
say  of  our  present  society  with  the  prophet  Isaiah, 
that  "  from  the  crown  of  the  head  to  the  sole  of 
the  foot  there  is  no  soundness  in  it."  This  may 
seem  an  exaggeration  even  as  the  sayings  of  Isaiah 
and  Paul  in  their  times  were  considered  wild  say- 
ings by  the  men  of  their  generation.  But  no  one 
who  walks  through  the  East  End  of  London,  the 
poorer  quarters  of  Berlin,  the  slums  of  the  Ameri- 
can cities,  can  help  taking  note  of  the  fact  that 
modern  society  is  afflicted  with  a  running  ulcer 
that  can  be  nothing  else  than  the  outlet  of  a  sorely 
diseased  body.  Nor  can  one  who  has  any  knowl- 
edge of  the  way  of  living  of  the  so-called  upper 
classes,  who  spend  their  days  in  expensive  idleness, 
who  corrupt  their  constitution  with  riotous  living, 
who  separate  themselves  inhumanly  from  human- 


THE  COMING  AGE  311 

ity,  help  remarking,  that  we  have  here  skulls  al- 
ready cracked,  spilling  their  brains  on  the  ground. 
There  are  to-day,  as  there  were  in  ancient  times, 
sound  elements  in  our  social  order.  If  it  were 
not  for  these,  that  order  could  not  endure  for  a 
moment,  but  the  order  itself  is  sick  unto  death. 
No  reform-remedies  can  cure  it.  This  order  must 
pass  away  and  in  due  time  be  decently  buried ;  and 
a  new  order  must  take  its  place. 

The  keystone  of  present  society  is  private  prop- 
erty. Private  property  in  land,  in  the  labor  of 
men,  in  the  natural  sources  of  wealth  and  in  the 
means  of  production  is  the  institution  that  the 
present  system  has  created  and  which  it  exists  to 
defend.  We  were  told  by  a  late  President  of  the 
United  States  that  private  property  is  that  institu- 
tion by  means  of  which  man  has  progressed  from 
savagery  up  to  his  present  highly  civilized  estate, 
and  we  are  able  to  say  to  this  exalted  personage: 
"  It  is  even  so."  Private  property  is  the  primary 
cause  of  the  present  condition  in  which  humanity 
finds  itself.  It  is  because  of  this  that  we  have 
both  the  prince  and  the  pauper.  It  is  private  prop- 
erty as  at  present  constituted  that  exalts  the  rich 
and  depresses  the  poor.  Because  of  private  prop- 
erty, the  poor  of  the  people  of  England  are  herded 
by  the  millions  in  the  monotonous  East  End  of 
London,  while  the   Duke  of  Westminster  appro- 


312       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOKKING-CLASS 

priates  a  thousand  acres  of  the  best  land  of  Eng- 
land for  the  purposes  of  a  rabbit-warren.  It  is 
estimated  that  the  people  of  London  pay  out  a  bil- 
lion five  hundred  millions  of  dollars  yearly  in 
rents  and  these  rents  are  appropriated  by  his  grace 
of  Westminster  and  his  grace  of  Bedford,  and  his 
grace  the  Bishop  of  Canterbury,  and  the  Bishop 
of  London  for  the  maintenance  of  parks  and  pal- 
aces, for  the  indulgence  of  every  cultivated  taste, 
for  the  keeping  up  of  cathedrals  and  episcopal  pal- 
aces and  vast  systems  of  divine  worship.  The  poor 
of  London  carry  daily  upon  their  backs  the  gods 
and  the  priests  and  the  kings  and  the  nobles  and 
the  bishops  and  the  clergy,  and  all  their  retinue  of 
servants,  their  horses,  and  their  carriages,  their 
motor-cars,  and  whatsoever  else  the  rich  provide 
for  their  own  indulgence.  Somebody  by  his  daily 
labor  must  earn  every  dollar  that  is  spent  in  the 
world.  When  labor  ceases,  production  ceases ;  and 
with  a  cessation  of  production,  there  is  an  arrest  of 
income.  If  the  laboring-class  were  to  go  on  a 
strike  for  six  months,  that  strike  would  reduce  the 
civilized  world  to  common  poverty. 

This  state  of  affairs  cannot  endure  indefinitely. 
It  is  already  in  process  of  destruction.  The  poor 
are  awakening  to  a  consciousness  of  the  fact  that 
they  are  doing  the  unrequited  labor  of  the  world. 
The  rise  of  the  working-class  to  self -consciousness 


THE  COMING  AGE  313 

and  class-consciousness,  is  putting  the  existing  or- 
der in  peril.  Just  as  soon  as  that  class-conscious- 
ness becomes  co-existent,  with  even  a  majority  of 
the  working-class  in  all  countries,  then  the  present 
game  is  up.  The  working-class  will  no  longer  play 
it,  and  unless  the  working-class  holds  its  hand,  the 
other  hand  in  the  game  is  useless. 

That  the  old  order  is  changing  must  be  evident 
to  the  most  careless.  The  present  order  is  being 
betrayed  from  within.  The  possessing-class  is 
growing  more  and  more  uneasy  in  its  possessions. 
The  spirit  of  humanity  which  is  abroad,  making  for 
brotherhood,  is  compelling  those  who  have  to  take 
into  consideration  the  condition  of  those  who  have 
not.  Statesmanship  is  leaving  the  realm  of  mere 
national  and  party  politics  to  enter  upon  and  solve 
the  great  questions  of  social  readjustment.  Every 
act  of  recent  legislation  that  is  new  in  principle 
deals  with  alterations  in  the  very  structure  of  so- 
ciety itself.  The  great  budget  of  1909  in  England 
was  revolutionary  in  its  character.  It  struck  at 
the  privileges  of  the  landed  aristocracy.  All  of 
our  laws  in  America  which  take  the  oversight  of 
private  business  are  intrusions  into  a  region  hith- 
erto forbidden  to  both  State  and  nation.  Blow 
after  blow  has  been  struck  at  that  most  ancient, 
sacred,  and  mighty  institution,  private  property, 
until  it  is  reeling  under  the  assault.     And  this 


314       THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

process  will  go  on  until  private  property  is  de- 
throned from  that  place  which  it  now  holds,  and 
instead  of  being  the  master  becomes  the  servant  of 
society  as  a  whole. 

Private  property  in  the  beginning  was  a  neces- 
sity, and  within  limits  it  is  still  a  necessity.  A 
man  in  old  times  required  a  property  right  in  the 
land  that  he  tilled,  so  that  when  he  sowed  his  seed, 
he  might  reap  his  harvest.  When  he  employed 
slaves,  he  claimed  the  right  to  all  the  land  which 
he  and  his  slaves  could  cultivate,  and  then  he 
claimed  the  right  to  all  the  land  which  he  could 
hold  against  all  comers.  This  right  to  property 
in  land  and  in  men  was  consecrated  by  legal  enact- 
ments. Landlord  combined  with  landlord  to  make 
land-laws,  and  to-day  we  have  unlimited  right  to 
ownership  in  land,  whether  a  man  uses  or  abuses 
it,  whether  he  defends  it  or  leaves  it  defenseless. 
The  whole  community  combines  to  protect  a  pri- 
vate individual  in  lordship  over  all  the  land  that 
he  can  by  hook  or  crook,  by  honest  purchase  or 
smart  deal,  get  into  his  possession.  And  so  the 
land  tends  ever  more  and  more  to  become  monopo- 
lized. The  cunning  man  goes  out  ahead  of  the 
population  and  gets  the  legal  title  to  the  land  and 
holds  up  everybody  who  wishes  to  use  the  land  for 
the  purpose  of  gaining  a  living,  and  is  thus  enabled 
to  tax  unlimitedly  the  one  who  tills  the  soil.     Our 


THE  COMING  AGE  315 

property-laws  to-day  are  as  absolute  as  were  the 
political  laws  and  customs  of  former  times.  Not 
so  very  long  ago  men  gave  into  the  hands  of  an 
untried  youth  the  right  to  manipulate  the  great 
powers  of  government,  according  to  his  wish  and 
will.  A  Louis  XV  could  take  the  great  kingdom 
of  France  and  exploit  it  to  satisfy  the  insatiable 
demands  of  his  concubines.  Henry  VIII  could  use 
the  powers  of  government  to  cut  off  the  heads  of 
Sir  Thomas  More  and  Bishop  Fisher.  But  we  see 
to-day  the  folly  of  all  that.  We,  however,  as  fool- 
ishly commit  to  a  youth  of  twenty  the  power  that 
lies  in  accumulated  property  estimated  at  any- 
where from  sixty  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of 
dollars.  We  lay  upon  an  aged  woman  the  respon- 
sibility of  properly  disbursing  the  income  of  from 
a  hundred  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  millions.  We 
tax  a  whole  population  to  maintain  a  snobbish 
hanger-on  to  the  English  nobility  in  the  luxurious 
living  which  his  snobbishness  demands  of  him.  We 
stand  and  look  on  at  all  these  absurdities  and  we 
never  laugh.  They  are  as  hideous  as  the  idols  that 
stand  at  the  doors  of  the  palace  of  the  Siamese 
King;  they  are  as  ridiculous  as  the  jade  gods  of  In- 
dia, and  yet  we  bow  down  to  them  and  cry :  "  These 
be  thy  gods,  O  Israel,  that  brought  thee  up  from 
the  land  of  Egypt  and  from  the  house  of  bondage." 
But  the  time  is  at  hand  when  these  gods  will  be 


316      THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

broken  and  new  gods  set  up  in  their  places.  The 
bogy  of  private  property  cannot  much  longer 
frighten  the  great  mass  of  people  who  have  no 
property.  Property  when  it  passes  the  limit  of 
use  is  simply  power  of  exploitation,  and  unlimited 
possession  is  nothing  else  than  unlimited  exploita- 
tion. The  late  head  of  the  oil-trust  possesses  his 
billion  of  dollars,  more  or  less,  only  because  the 
laws  gave  him  unlimited  right  of  private  property 
in  the  means  of  the  transportation  of  oil.  Without 
that  he  would  to-day  be  the  same  obscure  oil-refiner 
that  he  was  forty  years  ago.  It  was  a  privilege 
secured  to  him  by  law  that  made  him  what  he  is. 
Unlimited  private  ownership  in  the  sources  of 
wealth,  unlimited  private  ownership  in  the  means 
of  transportation  and  in  the  instruments  of  pro- 
duction, enables  a  little  handful  of  men  to  exploit 
the  labor  of  multitudes.  It  is  against  this  ex- 
ploitation that  the  great  working-class  movement 
is  directed.  This  movement  asserts  that  such  ex- 
ploitation is  morally  wrong  and  socially  disastrous. 
If  it  goes  on,  it  will  destroy  the  labor-force  by  im- 
poverishment;  it  will  enervate  the  directing  force 
through  repletion;  and  the  whole  system  will  fall 
to  pieces  of  its  own  rottenness.  Every  statesman 
to-day,  every  publicist,  is  beginning  to  awaken  to 
the  fact  that,  if  society  is  to  be  saved,  exploitation 
must   be   arrested.     In   his   famous   Armageddon 


THE  COMING  AGE  317 

speech  Theodore  Roosevelt  declared  that  the  power 
of  capital  to  exploit  labor  must  be  limited.  This 
declaration  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Eoosevelt  was  more 
far-reaching  that  he  had  any  notion  of.  It  meant 
the  end  of  the  present  order.  To  limit  capital  in 
its  power  of  exploitation  is  to  kill  capitalism. 
Capitalism  demands  an  ever  increasing  power  of 
expansion.  It  must  continually  reinvest  its  profits. 
It  must  go  on  exploiting  as  long  as  it  can  find  ma- 
terial for  exploitation.  When  it  comes  to  the  end 
of  the  possibilities  of  exploitation,  then  it  comes 
to  the  end  of  its  own  career. 

Already  the  capitalistic  system  is  beginning  to 
see  the  beginning  of  the  end.  It  has  exploited  the 
populations  of  the  various  capitalistic  countries 
themselves  until  these  populations  are  reduced  to 
a  state  of  misery  that  is  breeding  rebellion  that 
cannot  but  end  in  revolution;  it  has  exploited  the 
non-capitalistic  countries  until  the  people  of  these 
countries  are  adopting  the  capitalistic  system  in 
self-defense.  The  markets  are  already  glutted,  the 
means  of  production  have  possibilities  almost  un- 
limited, investments  have  absorbed  nearly  all  the 
paying  propositions  that  are  in  sight  and  the  sur- 
plus both  in  goods  and  in  money  of  capitalism  is 
piling  up  on  every  hand. 

The  great  populations  of  China  and  Japan  can 
no  longer  furnish  markets  to  the  Western  capital- 


318      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

istic  system.  These  peoples  themselves  are  adopt- 
ing that  system  and  are  competing  with  the  West- 
ern systems  in  the  markets  of  the  world.  This 
competition  bodes  a  disaster  to  the  modern  system 
of  capitalism  in  the  Western  World  the  like  of 
which  has  never  been  known  before  in  its  history. 
When  once  China  and  Japan  are  fully  organized 
capitalistically,  they  can  undersell  every  Western 
nation  until  the  Western  nations  reduce  the  West- 
ern working-class  to  the  Chinese-Japanese  standard 
of  living.  In  the  effort  to  bring  about  that  reduc- 
tion, the  modern  capitalistic  class  is  doomed  to 
destruction.  The  working-class  is  to-day  equipped, 
and  organized,  to  resist  such  reduction;  and  the 
clash  of  the  classes  can  only  end  in  the  destruction 
of  the  capitalistic  system  and  the  inauguration  of 
a  socialized  method  of  production  and  distribu- 
tion. 

It  is  impossible  to  forecast  in  detail  the  means 
whereby  this  great  change  in  the  structure  of  so- 
ciety will  be  accomplished.  The  question  is  fre- 
quently asked  how  private  ownership  will  be 
changed  into  social  or  public  possession.  The  cry 
of  confiscation  is  used  to  frighten  the  small  prop- 
erty-owner. It  is  asserted  that  with  the  coming  of 
anything  like  a  socialistic  organization  in  society, 
all  that  a  man  has  will  be  taken  away  from  him 
and  he  will  be  left  defenseless  in  the  world.     The 


THE  COMING  AGE  319 

answer  to  this  objection  is  that  confiscation  never 
conies  until  confiscation  is  a  dire  necessity.  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  by  a  few  strokes  of  his  pen,  confis- 
cated over  a  billion  of  dollars  of  property  legally 
owned  by  citizens  of  the  various  States.  But  Lin- 
coln did  not  do  this  in  anger,  he  was  forced  to  it 
as  a  war-measure.  He  would  gladly  have  left  the 
enfranchisement  of  the  negro  to  the  slow  working 
of  time,  or  he  would  have  paid  a  fair  compensation 
to  their  owners,  had  either  of  these  modes  been 
possible  at  the  time  and  under  the  circumstances. 
When  private  property  becomes  a  public  danger, 
when  it  arrests  the  development  of  the  people,  then 
its  confiscation  follows  naturally.  The  French  no- 
bility and  clergy  lost  their  lands  because  their  own- 
ership of  the  lands  had  impoverished  the  nation. 
If  private  property  accumulates  in  the  possession 
of  fewer  and  fewer  persons,  until  a  small  group  of 
men  are  able  to  control  the  life  and  happiness  of 
vast  populations,  then  as  a  matter  of  self-preserva- 
tion the  peoples  thus  oppressed  must  deprive  these 
men  of  the  power  which  their  property  gives  them. 
If  the  change  which  is  demanded  by  present  so- 
cial conditions  is  delayed  unduly,  then  that  change 
will  and  must  come  by  violence.  If  the  capitalistic 
system  continues  with  all  its  powers  of  exploita- 
tion until  the  Western  World  comes  into  conflict 
with  the  Eastern  World  for  the  markets  of  the 


320      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

world,  then  it  would  seem  as  if  nothing  could  pre- 
vent a  catastrophe  which  would  utterly  destroy  the 
present  order  and  compel  mankind  to  build  anew. 
Another  method  of  transferring  private  property 
to  public  control  and  appropriating  it  to  social 
uses  is  by  the  process  of  taxation.  All  private 
property  is  possessed  by  its  owner  only  so  long  as 
the  laws  protect  it.  The  law-making  power  may 
at  any  time  take  for  protection  such  a  part  of  the 
property  as  the  law-making  power  considers  to  be 
necessary.  In  times  of  war,  heavy  taxes  are  levied 
upon  both  real  and  personal  property,  upon  in- 
comes and  inheritances.  War-taxes  are  justified 
by  the  fact  that  if  the  war  against  a  given  nation 
is  successful,  then  all  the  property  right  is  at  risk, 
if  it  is  not  destroyed.  At  present  society,  in  the 
language  of  David  Lloyd  George,  is  engaged  in  a 
war  against  poverty.  Poverty  in  the  estimation  of 
this  statesman  is  a  greater  peril  to  England  than 
the  war-power  of  Germany.  This  warfare  against 
poverty  is  not  confined  to  England,  it  is  a  conflict 
going  on  in  all  nations.  Unless  the  force  of  pov- 
erty is  subdued,  it  will  destroy  society  and  reduce 
the  rich  and  the  poor  to  a  common  penury.  For 
this  reason,  it  is  entirely  legitimate  that  organized 
society  should  appropriate  freely  from  the  accumu- 
lated property  of  the  few  to  properly  finance  this 
great  struggle.     And  such  is  the  order  of  the  day. 


THE  COMING  AGE  321 

Increased  taxes  upon  land  and  the  increment  of 
land-values  was  that  feature  in  the  budget  of  1009 
which  gave  it  its  revolutionary  character  and  ar- 
rayed against  it  the  hostility  of  the  property 
classes.  But  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  vested 
interests,  we  must  expect  this  form  of  taxation  to 
grow  in  favor  until  it  absorbs  all  of  the  unearned 
increment  and  in  effect  socializes  the  land.  In 
the  near  future  all  laws  of  primogeniture  and 
entail  will  be  erased  from  the  statute-book  of  every 
nation,  the  division  and  sub-division  of  land  will 
be  made  easy,  and  its  distribution  will  follow  as  a 
consequence  of  these  changes  in  the  law.  The  land- 
owners will  not  be  compensated  for  the  loss  that 
will  come  to  them  through  these  changes,  because 
the  land-owners  did  not  create,  in  any  way,  by  their 
own  efforts,  these  values  which  are  taken  over  by 
the  community.  The  people  produce  the  increased 
values  and  to  the  people  these  values  naturally  be- 
long. But  the  land-owner  will  be  secure  in  all  that 
is  his,  and  he  can  sustain  himself  in  a  proper  stand- 
ard of  human  living.  He  will  not,  however,  be  able 
any  longer  to  indulge  himself  in  all  the  splendor 
and  the  luxury  which  he  has  considered  heretofore 
to  be  necessary  to  his  station  in  life.  Taxation  is 
not  confiscation,  unless  it  takes  over  the  whole  of 
the  property.  As  the  working-class  comes  more 
and  more  into  power  it  will  as  a  matter  of  policy 


322       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

use  the  method  of  taxation  to  finance  those  schemes 
for  the  betterment  of  the  working-class  which  it 
will  inaugurate.  And  if  the  working-class  did  hut 
know  as  much,  it  has  in  this  power  of  taxation  the 
only  weapon  that  it  needs  to  bring  about  an  equi- 
table distribution  of  the  common  wealth. 

When  the  community  takes  over  private  prop- 
erty, it  compensates  the  owner  upon  a  basis  which 
the  community  itself  establishes.  It  gives  to  the 
owner  not  what  he  claims  to  be  the  value  of  his 
property,  but  what  is  considered  a  fair  value  by 
judges  appointed  by  the  public  authorities.  This 
method  need  not  be  departed  from  in  the  gradual 
transfer  of  the  ownership  of  any  given  property 
from  private  persons  to  public  ownership.  This 
will  always  be  a  matter  for  mutual  adjustment  to 
be  determined  by  the  circumstances  in  each  indi- 
vidual case.  The  transition  may  be,  and  ought  to 
be,  less  painful  than  are  many  of  the  changes  that 
take  place  in  property-rights  under  the  present  sys- 
tem of  private  control.  A  change  of  a  few  points 
in  the  price  of  a  stock  on  the  stock  market,  enriches 
one  and  impoverishes  another.  One  man  gains 
what  another  man  loses,  but  we  do  not  find  the 
stock  market  described  by  the  present  monied 
classes  as  a  confiscatory  institution.  An  orderly 
process  whereby  property  rights  which  have  be- 
come hostile  to  the  public  good  are  transferred  from 


THE  COMING  AGE  323 

private  to  public  control  need  not  and  may  not 
work  any  considerable  hardship. 

Another  method  by  which  the  public  assumes 
control  over  that  which  in  the  present  order  is 
considered  private  business  is  by  the  method  of 
duplication.  The  public  through  its  organized 
government  does  for  itself  what  heretofore  has 
been  done  for  it  by  private  enterprise.  In  such  in- 
stances, the  public  pays  no  attention  whatever  to 
the  private  business.  It  simply  establishes  its  own 
business  on  the  same  lines.  At  the  time  of  this 
writing,  the  United  States  Government  has  entered 
into  the  business  of  carrying  parcels  and  in  so 
doing  has  duplicated  the  business  of  the  great  ex- 
press companies. 

If  the  government  were  to  develop  this  enter- 
prise to  the  fullest  possible  extent,  it  would  simply 
drive  the  express  companies  out  of  business.  Their 
stock  would  become  worthless  and  the  holders  of 
that  stock  would  not  receive  a  penny  of  compensa- 
tion. But  in  this  the  government  would  do  no 
wrong.  Every  stockholder  in  every  commercial 
enterprise  buys  and  holds  the  stock  at  his  own 
risk.  This  method  of  duplication  is  one  that  may 
be  and  undoubtedly  will  be  largely  employed  in 
bringing  about  the  transfer  of  private  property  to 
public  ownership.  The  public  need  not  buy  a  sin- 
gle railway,  telephone,  or  telegraph  line.     It  has 


324      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WOEKING-CLASS 

the  labor  and  it  lias  the  capital  to  duplicate  these, 
and  it  would  enrich  itself  by  employing  its  surplus 
labor  in  such  public  enterprise.  Confiscation,  com- 
pensation, and  duplication  are  the  three  ways  in 
which  the  transfer  from  private  to  public  owner- 
ship can  be  made.  They  all  may  be  employed,  they 
all  will  be  employed  as  circumstances  from  time  to 
time  determine. 

It  is  useless  to  picture  the  coming  age.  The  im- 
agination of  man  can  only  portray  what  has  already 
come  within  the  range  of  its  vision.  If  it  wishes  to 
paint  an  inhabitant  of  the  celestial  regions,  it  puts 
the  wings  of  a  bird  upon  the  form  of  a  woman. 
We  must  leave  to  the  future  the  exact  portrayal  of 
what  the  future  creates.  "We  can  only  say  at  pres- 
ent that  a  new  order  is  evolving.  Judging  from  the 
past,  we  can  say  that  the  new  order  will  be  an  ad- 
vance upon  the  old.  It  will  differ  from  it  essen- 
tially. But  that  difference  need  not  and  in  all 
probability  will  not  be  for  the  worse,  but  for  the 
better.  The  abolition  of  poverty,  if  it  comes  to 
pass,  will  relieve  mankind  of  one  of  its  greatest 
present  horrors.  The  fear  of  want  which  now  dogs 
man's  footsteps  will  no  longer  pursue  him.  It  will 
be  possible  for  him  to  practise  the  great  preach- 
ment of  the  One  whom  the  great  mass  of  the  pres- 
ent population  of  the  Western  World  holds  to  be 


THE  COMING  AGE  325 

a  God.  He  can  live  as  the  birds  live,  he  can  grow 
as  the  lily  grows,  and  have  the  joys  of  the  bird  and 
the  beauty  of  the  lily  in  his  life.  One  thing  is  cer- 
tain :  private  property  as  now  established  is 
doomed.  Social  control  will  encroach  more  and 
more  upon  it,  until  it  has  lost  the  power  to  oppress 
and  to  depress  the  people.  In  its  stead  will  come 
the  common  property,  which  all  must  produce  and 
which  all  may  enjoy.  To  look  forward  to  such  a 
change  with  foreboding  is  the  rankest  pessimism. 
If  man  cannot  improve  upon  his  present  social  life, 
then  the  life  of  man  is  not  worth  the  living.  If 
we  must  be  forever  thinking  of  what  we  shall  eat 
and  what  we  shall  drink  and  wherewithal  we  shall 
be  clothed,  then  materialism,  in  the  moral  sense 
of  that  word,  is  all  that  man  has  to  live  by,  and  his 
life  under  such  a  regime  is  nothing  worth. 

Humanity  has  within  it  the  forces  to  create  a 
world  in  which  voluntary  poverty  with  the  human 
wretchedness  and  degradation  that  always  follow 
in  its  camp  need  not  exist,  and  having  that  power 
humanity  must  use  it  to  release  mankind  from  the 
bondage  under  which  it  is  now  laboring.  Up  to 
this  time,  civilization  socially  has  been  a  failure. 
The  barbarian  in  the  upper  period  of  barbarism 
lived  a  freer,  a  nobler,  and  a  happier  life.  It  would 
be  better  to  return  to  that  condition  than  to  sink 


326       THE  EISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

down  into  an  effete  civilization  wherein  it  is  impos- 
sible for  the  great  mass  of  mankind  to  live  the  hu- 
man life. 

It  is  a  fact  in  the  history  of  biology,  that  a  given 
organism  having  found  a  certain  function  useful 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  has  enlarged  the  organ 
of  that  function  until  the  enlarged  organ  absorbs 
and  finally  destroys  the  life  of  the  organism.  The 
pterodactyl  found  a  tail  useful  for  purposes  of  lo- 
comotion and  defense.  Because  of  this  it  went  on 
growing  its  tail  to  the  detriment  of  its  organism 
as  a  whole,  and  in  time  the  tail  was  too  great  for 
the  brain  to  manage,  and  the  pterodactyl  perished. 
This  has  been  the  life-history  of  a  multitude  of  or- 
ganisms, and  it  is  the  life-history  of  the  present  so- 
cial order.  That  order  established  itself  in  private 
property,  private  ownership  in  the  labor  of  man, 
in  the  forces  of  nature  and  in  the  creations  of  so- 
ciety itself.  This  institution  has  grown  at  the  ex- 
pense of  society  as  a  whole.  If  it  cannot  be  ar- 
rested and  in  a  large  measure  abated,  it  will  destroy 
society  and  man  will  revert  to  a  lower  stage  of 
existence.  The  cry  of  the  present  age  is  human 
right,  not  property  right,  and  by  that  war-cry  will 
the  future  of  humanity  conquer  its  past. 

Morgan  in  Ancient  Society  has  stated  this  fact 
with  such  clearness  that  we  can  well  close  the  argu- 
ment by  quoting  his  words :    "  Since  the  advent  of 


THE  COMING  AGE  327 

civilization  the  outgrowth  of  property  has  been  so 
immense,  its  forms  so  diversified,  its  uses  so  ex- 
panded, and  its  management  so  intelligent  in  the 
interests  of  its  owners,  that  it  has  become  on  the 
part  of  the  people  an  unmanageable  power.  The 
human  mind  stands  bewildered  in  the  presence  of 
its  own  creation.  The  time  will  come,  nevertheless, 
when  human  intelligence  will  rise  to  the  mastery 
over  property  and  define  the  relations  of  the  State 
to  the  property  it  protects,  as  well  as  the  obliga- 
tions and  the  limits  of  the  rights  of  its  owners. 
The  interests  of  society  are  paramount  to  the  indi- 
vidual interests,  and  the  two  must  be  brought  into 
just  and  harmonious  relations.  A  mere  property 
career  is  not  the  final  destiny  of  mankind,  if  prog- 
ress is  to  be  the  law  of  the  future  as  it  has  been  of 
the  past.  The  time  which  has  passed  away  since 
civilization  began  is  but  a  fragment  of  the  past 
duration  of  man's  existence  and  but  a  fragment  of 
the  ages  yet  to  come.  The  dissolution  of  society 
bids  fair  to  become  the  termination  of  a  career  of 
which  property  is  the  end  and  aim ;  because  such  a 
career  contains  the  elements  of  self-destruction. 
Democracy  in  government,  brotherhood  in  society, 
equalities  in  rights  and  privileges  and  universal 
education  foreshadow  the  next  higher  plane  of  so- 
ciety, to  which  experience,  intelligence,  and  knowl- 
edge are  steadily  tending.     It  will  be  a  revival  in  a 


328      THE  RISE  OF  THE  WORKING-CLASS 

higher  form  of  the  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity 
of  the  ancient  gentes." 

These  words  were  written  more  than  fifty  years 
ago.  The  writer  of  them  prophesied  of  things  to 
come.  What  he  foretold  is  now  coming  to  pass. 
Slowly  but  surely  the  privileges  of  property, 
whereby  it  is  able  to  oppress  the  people,  are  being 
appropriated  by  the  people  themselves.  The  sig- 
nificant fact  of  present-day  history  is  the  rise  of 
the  working-class  from  the  condition  of  degrada- 
tion, under  which  it  has  throughout  the  civilized 
era  been  compelled  to  live,  to  the  control  of  the 
social,  the  political,  and  the  religious  life  of  the 
world.  Upon  the  wisdom  of  that  class  the  future 
depends.  Its  education  must  precede  its  elevation 
if  the  last  state  of  society  is  not  to  be  worse  than 
the  first.  To  the  work  of  educating  the  future  mas- 
ters of  the  world  the  energies  of  the  world  are  now 
and  must  be  directed.  The  working-class  must 
have  leisure  to  prepare  itself  for  the  destinies  that 
await  it.  It  is  already  becoming,  and  soon  will  be, 
the  only  class  in  society.  Society  in  organizing 
itself  industrially  can  have  no  place  for  the  drone 
or  the  parasite.  It  will  demand  that  every  man 
and  woman  shall  be  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word 
a  working-man  and  a  working-woman :  that  each 
shall  give  to  society  as  much  as  he  takes  from 
society. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

THE  WAR  AGAINST  POVERTY 

Being  a  review  of  the  Speech  of  David  Lloyd  George 
in  presenting  and  explaining  the  Budget  of  1909. 
(Delivered  April  29th,  1909.)  Read  as  a  paper  be- 
fore the  Fortnightly  Club  of  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  March 
15th,  1910,  by  Algernon  Sidney  Crapsey. 

THE    CLOSING   SENTIMENT    OP    THE   SPEECH    ON   THE 
BUDGET. 

In  closing  his  speech  presenting  and  explaining  his 
Budget  to  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  29th  of  April 
1909,  David  Lloyd  George,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
gave  voice  to  the  following  significant  and  fateful  senti- 
ment. Addressing  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of 
the  Whole  House,  having  the  Bill  under  consideration, 
he  said:  "This,  Mr.  Emmott,  is  a  War  Budget.  It  is 
for  raising  money  to  wage  implacable  warfare  against 
poverty  and  squalidness.  I  cannot  help  hoping  and  be- 
lieving that  before  this  generation  has  passed  away 
we  shall  have  advanced  a  great  step  toward  that  good 
time  when  poverty  and  the  wretchedness  and  human 
degradation  which  always  follow  in  its  camp  will  be  as 
remote  to  the  people  of  this  country  as  the  wolves  which 
once  infested  its  forests. ' ' 

331 


332  APPENDIX 


THE   CAUSE   OF   THE   DEFICIT. 


When  Lloyd  George  came  to  make  up  his  Budget  he 
found  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  deficit  ox  sixteen 
million  pounds.  This  deficit  was  occasioned  by  the 
extraordinary  demands  on  the  Exchequer  by  the  Naval 
and  Home  Departments.  The  Naval  demands  were  cre- 
ated by  the  fear  of  aggression  from  without;  the  Home 
Department  was  obliged  to  incur  increased  expenses  be- 
cause of  alarming  degeneration  within.  The  Navy  called 
for  Dreadnoughts  and  the  Home  Department  for  Old- 
Age  Pensions.  England  can  cry  to-day  as  Paul  did  of 
old :     ' '  Without  are  fightings  and  within  are  fears. ' ' 

POVERTY   MORE   THREATENING   THAN   WAR. 

In  the  mind  of  the  present  Chancellor  the  dangers 
from  internal  decay  loom  larger  than  do  the  perils  from 
exterior  enemies.  In  his  mind  not  Germany  but  Pov- 
erty is  most  to  be  feared  by  the  people  and  government 
of  Great  Britain.  In  giving  expression  to  this  senti- 
ment, Lloyd  George  calls  the  attention  not  only  of  his 
own  people  but  of  the  whole  world  to  a  political  phe- 
nomenon of  grave  import  that  lies  on  the  surface  of 
history,  but  which  though  always  in  sight  is  seldom  or 
never  seen.  This  fact  is,  that  very  few  nations  ever 
die  a  violent  death.  It  is  true  of  nations  as  it  is  of  indi- 
vidual men  and  women,  that  here  and  there  one  dies  by 
violence,  but  the  great  multitude  die  in  their  beds,  the 
victims  of  internal  disorder. 


APPENDIX  333 


POVERTY   A   DISEASE   OF    CIVILIZATION. 

From  the  beginning  human  civilization  has  been  af- 
flicted with  a  disorder  which  until  now  has  been  con- 
sidered incurable.  Poverty  is  a  disease  of  civilization. 
In  the  true  sense  of  the  word  poverty  with  its  attendant 
wretchedness  and  degradation  is  not  a  natural  product. 
It  breeds  only  in  somewhat  highly  organized  human  so- 
cieties. In  nature  one  tree  may  grow  in  richer  soil  than 
another,  but  the  one  is  not  conscious  of  its  better,  nor 
the  other  of  its  worse  estate.  And  in  extreme  cases  na- 
ture has  a  way  of  getting  rid  of  poverty  by  ruthlessly 
killing  it  off.  Where  there  is  not  food  enough  for  all 
comers  the  strongest  and  the  swiftest  eat  it  and  the 
weak  and  backward  starve  and  die.  There  are  no 
hospitals  or  organized  charities  in  nature.  She  has 
but  one  cure  for  poverty  and  that  is  death.  Nor  is 
poverty,  in  its  more  virulent  forms,  to  be  found  in  the 
savage  and  barbaric  periods  of  human  development. 
Savages  are  too  near  to  nature  to  breed  the  disease  of 
poverty,  with  its  sense  of  inequality  and  injustice. 
Whatever  the  tribe  has  is  shared  in  common.  When 
there  is  a  famine  in  the  camp  the  chief  goes  hungry; 
when  there  is  nothing  to  eat  starvation  is  the  common 
lot.  In  the  barbaric  age  the  necessities  of  life  were 
so  few  and  so  abundant,  and  human  population  so 
scanty,  that  poverty  in  its  later  manifestations  was  un- 
necessary and  unknown.  When  animals  were  domesti- 
cated the  cattle  and  sheep  multiplied  beyond  human  need 
and  the  care  of  them  demanded  so  much  of  human  over- 


334  APPENDIX 

sight  that  there  was  no  need  for  any  to  be  idle  or  hun- 
gry. The  barbarian  lived  a  life  of  hardship  but  not  of 
degradation.     His  life  was  simple  but  complete. 

POVERTY   IS   CAUSED   BY   WEALTH. 

If  we  would  understand  how  entirely  poverty  is  a 
disease  of  civilization  we  have  but  to  contrast  the  con- 
dition of  a  Western  farmer  fighting  his  way  through  a 
blinding  blizzard  of  snow  with  that  of  a  homeless  wretch 
who  sleeps  under  the  arches  of  Waterloo  bridge.  The 
farmer  may  perish  before  he  reaches  his  home  and  his 
flesh  become  carrion  for  coyotes,  but  we  do  not  think  of 
him  and  his  misfortune  with  that  pity  which  is  akin  to 
contempt.  His  life  is  one  of  peril  but  not  of  degrada- 
tion; he  dies  bravely  fighting  the  forces  of  nature  face 
to  face.  But  the  man  who  sleeps  on  the  benches  of  the 
embankment  and  under  the  arches  of  the  bridge  and 
walks  the  streets  by  night  to  keep  himself  warm  is  an 
object  of  contempt  as  well  as  of  compassion.  His  keen- 
est sufferings  come  not  from  his  material  but  from  his 
mental  and  spiritual  pains.  He  is  oppressed  not  so 
much  by  the  gnawing  of  hunger  and  the  biting  of  the 
cold  as  he  is  by  a  sense  of  failure,  of  shame  and  injus- 
tice. His  condition  is  both  his  fault  and  his  misfortune. 
He  is  starving  in  the  midst  of  plenty.  On  every  side 
of  him  are  comfortable  homes  in  which  he  has  no  place, 
firesides  that  he  cannot  share ;  in  his  sight  is  abundance 
of  food  which  his  hunger  craves  but  which  he  dares  not 
take.  It  is  not  nature  that  is  cruel  and  niggardly,  it  is 
his  brother  man.     This  man  is  not  a  drunken  sot;  or 


APPENDIX  335 

if  he  is,  his  drunkenness  is  more  often  the  effect  than 
the  cause  of  his  misery.  In  the  greater  number  of  cases 
he  is  an  English  working-man  out  of  a  job;  who  has 
spent  his  strength  creating  the  wealth  of  England  and 
in  that  wealth  we  are  to  find  the  sources  of  his  pov- 
erty. Justice  has  failed  to  give  him  the  due  reward  of 
his  toil.  His  employer  has  taken  an  undue  share  of  his 
earnings;  the  landlord  and  the  merchant  have  taken  an 
undue  share  of  his  spendings;  and  now  that  he  is  out 
of  employment — because  there  are  too  many  of  him,  or 
because  he  is  sick  or  too  old — he  is  on  the  street  for- 
lorn and  penniless,  an  object  of  pity  and  contempt.  No 
one  can  walk  through  the  streets  of  East  London  where 
thousands  of  these  men  are  listlessly  leaning  against  the 
wall,  looking  with  blank,  hopeless  gaze  on  the  light  of 
day,  without  a  feeling  of  horror.  Are  these  the  streets 
of  a  civilized,  Christian  city  or  are  they  the  pavements 
of  Hell?  These  men  belong  to  a  disinherited,  degraded 
race  of  men.  They  are  the  children  of  the  serfs  and 
slaves  of  older  periods  of  human  history.  They  and 
the  like  of  them  have  exhausted  their  life-energy  in  pro- 
moting the  wealth  of  England,  and  now  England  turns 
them  out  to  die  in  shame  and  sorrow.  The  employer, 
the  landlord,  and  the  merchant  all  live  in  comfort  and 
some  of  them  in  luxury;  they  pass  their  days  in  the 
sacred  atmosphere  of  respectability ;  they  die  decently  in 
their  beds  and  are  buried  with  pomp  and  piety;  while 
these  men  and  women,  who  have  done  the  hard,  rough 
work  that  renders  the  higher  life  of  the  privileged 
classes  possible,  are  deprived  of  most  of  the  comforts  and 


336  APPENDIX 

many  of  the  necessities  of  life,  they  are  despised  by  those 
whom  they  serve  and  in  many  cases  they  die  in  pauper 
beds  and  are  buried  in  pauper  graves. 

THE   TWO   NATIONS — THE    COUNTESS    AND    THE    COSTER 
NATION. 

It  was  Benjamin  Disraeli  who  said  that  England  was 
inhabited  by  two  nations,  the  rich  and  the  poor.  These 
two  nations  find  their  typical  representatives  in  the 
Countess  and  the  coster-woman.  The  Countess  and  the 
coster-woman  have  less  in  common  than  the  Countess 
and  her  greyhound  bitch.  The  greyhound  like  the 
Countess  is  a  high-bred  creature  living  a  life  of  idle- 
ness and  luxury;  the  coster- woman  is  low-bred,  living 
by  hard  labor  in  misery.  These  two  nations,  the  Count- 
ess and  the  coster  nation  are  superimposed  the  one 
upon  the  other.  It  is  the  coster  nation  that  pays  the 
rents  and  earns  the  profits  upon  which  the  Countess 
nation  lives,  and  it  takes  a  thousand  coster-women  to 
support  one  Countess.  And  one  Countess  counts  for 
more  than  a  thousand  coster-women  in  the  social  order. 
She  has  intelligence,  wealth,  and  social  position ;  behind 
her  are  generations  of  culture ;  she  is  entrenched  by  the 
law  in  her  position  of  privilege.  She  represents  the 
brain-power  of  the  social  organism.  The  coster-woman 
represents  the  muscular  strength  of  humanity.  She  is 
the  hand  of  that  body  of  which  the  Countess  is  the 
head ;  behind  her  are  ages  of  ignorance  and  dependence 
and  unrequited  toil.  Her  birthright  is  her  poverty. 
She  is  by  the  law  a  landless,  houseless  woman.     She  is 


APPENDIX  337 

unlettered,  uncultured,  and  speaks  an  uncouth  and  bar- 
barous dialect.  She  has  no  share  in  the  average  pros- 
perity of  the  community  in  which  she  lives.  In  the 
struggle  of  the  Countess  nation  against  the  coster  nation 
it  is  the  conflict  of  quality  with  quantity,  it  is  the  class 
against  the  mass;  and  in  this  contest  quality  has  an  im- 
mense advantage.  Because  of  superior  intelligence  and 
inherited  privilege  the  classes,  with  rare  exceptions,  have 
been  able  to  control  the  masses. 

It  is  the  presence  of  these  two  nations  in  every  cen- 
ter of  civilization  that  is  the  most  startling  phenomenon 
of  human  life.  It  is  that  common  sight  which  every  one 
sees,  but  which  no  one  considers. 

THE   PRIME   CAUSE  OF   POVERTY. 

It  is  this  fact  which  is  the  prime  cause  of  poverty. 
The  poor  are  poor  because  they  give  their  time  and 
strength  to  work  that  serves  not  their  own  life  but  the 
life  of  the  classes  above  them.  Human  civilization  is 
based  upon  this  as  upon  a  foundation.  From  the  be- 
ginning it  has  been  the  custom,  and  in  all  ancient  codes 
it  is  the  written  law  of  mankind,  that  the  many  shall 
serve  the  few,  the  weak  shall  labor  for  the  strong,  that 
the  simple  shall  be  the  prey  of  the  cunning. 

SLAVERY   THE   BEGINNING   OF    CTVILIZED   LIFE. 

Human  civilization  began  when  the  first  savage  war- 
rior had  the  sense  to  see  that  his  captive  was  worth 
more  to  him  alive  than  dead,  when  he  took  away  from 
him  the  weapons  of  war  and  gave  him  the  implements 


338  APPENDIX 

of  industry.  The  first  property-right  which  men  ac- 
quired was  property-right  in  the  labor  of  other  men. 
This  was  the  most  obvious  and  earliest  of  human  insti- 
tutions. The  right  of  the  stronger  man  to  compel  the 
weaker  to  work  for  him  was  so  clear  tha+-  to  the  primi- 
tive mind  it  had  all  the  force  of  a  law  of  nature.  Prop- 
erty in  men  antedated  property  in  land ;  indeed  land  was 
of  no  value  until  there  were  male  and  female  slaves  to 
work  it. 

ANCIENT    CIVILIZATION   BASED   ON   SLAVERY. 

All  ancient  human  civilization  was  based  upon  human 
slavery.  Every  captive  taken  in  war  was  the  slave  of  his 
captor,  and  the  children  of  this  slave  and  his  children's 
children  were  born  into  slavery  from  generation  to  gener- 
ation. All  the  splendor  of  Babylon,  all  the  glory  of 
Rome  were  in  the  last  analysis  the  product  of  slave  la- 
bor. It  was  slave  labor  that  gave  the  philosopher  leisure 
to  think,  the  artist  time  to  create.  The  slave  popula- 
tion had  no  rights  which  the  master  class  was  bound 
to  respect.  It  was  denied  all  but  the  barest  necessities 
of  life  and  even  these  were  withheld  at  the  pleasure  of 
the  master  class.  The  slaves  which  Athens  drove  into 
her  mines  were  deprived  of  light  and  air  and  clothing 
and  the  company  of  women.  It  did  not  pay  to  propa- 
gate slaves;  it  was  cheaper  and  easier  to  capture  them. 
Everywhere  the  slave  population  was  overworked  and 
underfed.  The  slave  had  no  share  in  the  mental  or  moral 
life  of  the  community.  If  by  chance  he  acquired  skill 
or  learning  he  became  only  the  more  valuable  to  his 
master.     In  the  later  days  of  Roman  dominance,  there 


APPENDIX  339 

were  millions  of  slaves  captured  in  the  East  who  were 
more  cultured  than  their  masters,  and  it  was  these  who 
pandered  to  the  vices  of  their  masters,  who  corrupted 
Roman  manners,  and  did  much  to  disintegrate  the  Ro- 
man power. 

INEFFICIENCY  OF  SLAVE  LABOR. 

The  expensiveness  and  inefficiency  of  slave  labor  has 
been  the  constant  complaint  of  those  who  were  forced 
to  use  this  method  of  production.  The  slave  was  hardly 
worth  the  cost  of  his  keep.  As  a  consequence  of  this 
the  aged  and  the  sick  had  little  or  no  care  and  the  strong 
and  well  were  worked  out  in  a  few  years.  So  it  came 
to  pass  that  the  slave  population  died  faster  than  it 
could  be  born.  In  the  slave-quarters  plagues  were 
generated  that  swept  over  and  devastated  the  world. 
Gibbon  tells  us  that  in  the  reign  of  Justinian  more  than 
one-third  of  the  population  of  the  Empire  perished. 

FAILURE   OF    ANCIENT   CIVILIZATION. 

The  ancient  civilization  died  chiefly  because  its  eco- 
nomic system  was  unsound.  It  looked  on  man  as  a  com- 
modity to  be  bought  and  sold  in  the  market.  It  denied 
a  fundamental  fact  of  human  life,  which  is  "that  a 
man  's  a  man  for  a'  that";  any  social  order  which  ig- 
nores the  right  of  man  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness  is  unstable  and  cannot  endure. 

RETURN    TO    BARBARISM. 

The  break-up  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  followed  by 
a  return  to  barbarism  in  the  West  and  by  a  vicious, 


340  APPENDIX 

stagnant,  degenerate  civilization  in  Byzantium  and  the 
East. 

In  the  West  the  fall  of  the  Roman  power  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  practical  enslavement  of  the  native  work- 
ing-class in  the  provinces  and  Italy.  The  land  became 
by  conquest  the  property  of  the  invading  tribes  and 
the  ancient  Gaul,  Iberian,  Tuscan,  and  Britain  became 
the  serf  and  the  thrall  of  the  Goth,  the  Frank,  the  Saxon, 
and  the  Lombard.  As  a  consequence  of  this  destruc- 
tion of  the  ancient  order  in  Europe  the  standard  of  liv- 
ing fell  to  the  lowest  point  consistent  with  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  race.  Human  and  animal  muscular  strength 
was  the  only  labor-force,  and  the  tillage  of  the  land  was 
the  only  source  of  wealth.  During  this  period  the  labor- 
power  was  able  to  produce  only  the  barest  necessities 
of  life  and  as  soon  as  the  labor-power  got  a  little  ahead 
of  starvation  the  surplus  was  consumed  by  the  barons  in 
building  their  castles  and  by  the  bishops  in  building  their 
cathedrals. 

CONDITION   OF   THE  POOR  IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES. 

The  condition  of  the  poor  at  that  time  was  akin  to 
that  of  the  Southern  slave  on  the  best  Southern  planta- 
tions; they  lived  in  their  wattle  huts  under  the  shadow 
and  protection  of  the  castle,  while  the  cathedral  was 
their  place  of  worship,  their  town-hall,  their  theater, 
their  social  center,  and  their  market.  As  in  every  bar- 
baric age,  there  was  a  certain  equality  among  men,  in  so 
far  as  the  necessities  of  life  were  concerned,  all  were 
gross  feeders  and  hard  drinkers.     In  times  of  plenty 


APPENDIX  341 

all  feasted;  in  times  of  dearth,  all  starved.  The  crude 
methods  of  production  made  any  great  accumulation  of 
wealth  impossible.  Population  was  scanty;  means  of 
intercourse,  difficult  and  hazardous;  and  life  was  made 
endurable  only  by  a  religion  that  promised  a  better  world 
to  come.  Population  was  kept  down  by  war,  famine,  pes- 
tilence, and  celibacy. 

MONASTIC   COMMUNISM    AS   A    SOLUTION   OF   THE 
PROBLEM    OF   POVERTY. 

The  monastic  system  was  the  creation  of  economic  con- 
ditions. Life  was  so  hard  that  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  the  less  aggressive  men  and  women  ran  away  from 
it.  They  refused  to  breed  and  take  upon  themselves  the 
responsibility  of  children.  They  gathered  in  communi- 
ties, the  men  by  themselves  and  the  women  by  them- 
selves, and  sustained  their  life  by  their  common  labor. 
It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the  monastery  was  an 
economic  institution.  The  monks  cultivated  the  soil  and 
carried  on  various  industries.  These  celibate  communi- 
ties acquired  wealth  because  they  were  centers  of  adult 
labor,  where  there  were  no  useless  mouths  to  feed.  And 
being  centers  of  production  they  also  became  centers  of 
exchange.  Around  their  walls  hamlets  grew  to  villages, 
villages  to  towns,  and  towns  to  cities.  These  institu- 
tions were  the  creations  of  the  common  people  to  meet 
the  necessities  of  the  times.  The  swine-herds  and  the 
cow-herds,  the  milk-maids  and  the  plowmen  were  the 
men  and  women  who  remade  the  world  and  laid  the 
foundations   of   modern    civilization.     The    monasteries 


342  APPENDIX 

solved  the  problem  of  poverty  for  vast  numbers  of  peo- 
ple by  the  practice  of  celibacy  and  by  the  law  of  common 
labor  for  the  common  life.  The  vows  of  poverty,  chas- 
tity, and  obedience  were  the  protection  of  the  common 
people  against  the  destructive  forces  of  property,  of  mil- 
tary  license,  and  social  disorder  which  were  then  ram- 
pant in  the  world.  In  the  monastic  system  the  indi- 
vidual was  poor,  the  community  was  rich ;  the  individual 
was  barren,  the  community  was  fruitful;  the  individual 
was  a  slave,  the  community  was  free.  This  solution  of 
the  problem  of  poverty  by  the  method  of  communism 
lasted  until  medieval  barbarism  began  to  merge  into  mod- 
ern civilization. 

THE   REVIVAL   OF    TRADE   AND   THE  PASSING   OF 
MEDIEVALISM. 

The  revival  of  trade  with  the  East  in  the  eleventh 
and  twelfth  centuries  enriched  the  free  cities  of  Italy. 
Milan  and  Venice  became  the  centers  of  exchanges. 
Lombard  bankers,  the  fathers  of  our  modern  pawn-brok- 
ers with  their  sign  of  the  three  gold  balls,  established 
themselves  as  money-lenders  in  various  parts  of  Europe 
and  the  merchant  began  to  compete  with  the  soldier 
and  the  priest  for  social  and  political  supremacy.  "With 
the  decadence  of  the  monastery  and  the  rise  of  the 
burgher  class,  poverty  reappeared  in  its  more  virulent 
forms.  The  soldier  held  power  by  reason  of  his  valor, 
the  priest  because  of  his  learning,  while  the  merchant 
had  to  depend  for  his  influence  upon  his  money.  Ma- 
terial wealth  in  the  shape  of  gold,  silver,  precious  stones, 


APPENDIX  343 

houses,  lands,  mortgages  and  bonds  were  the  weapons 
with  which  the  merchant  fought  the  soldier  and  the 
priest.  And  as  the  power  of  the  purse  is  greater  in  this 
world  than  the  power  of  the  sword  or  the  power  of  the 
missal  so  it  came  to  pass  that  the  romanticism  and 
pietism  of  the  medieval  age  passed  away  and  the  modern 
era  of  Commercialism  and  Materialistic  Realism  came 
in  their  stead.  The  scene  of  the  merchant's  activity  was 
the  city  and  the  city  as  we  have  already  learned  is  the 
breeding-place  of  poverty. 

THE   POVERTY   OF   ITALIAN   CITIES. 

In  the  cities  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  period  pov- 
erty was  held  in  check  by  pestilence.  The  plagues  that 
devastated  Naples,  Florence,  and  Milan  made  human  la- 
bor scarce  and  therefore  valuable.  But  in  spite  of  this 
there  was  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  new  era  such 
dire  poverty  with  its  attendant  degradation  and  misery 
in  all  the  cities  of  Italy  that  it  aroused  the  benevolent 
energies  of  Sant'  Antonio  of  Florence,  called  forth  the 
sacrificial  love  of  St.  Francis,  and  stirred  the  divine  in- 
dignation of  Savonarola. 

MENDICANCY   A   CURE   FOR  POVERTY. 

The  mendicant  orders  were  the  product  of  an  effort  to 
deal  with  the  problem  of  poverty  by  embracing  it. 
Since  so  many  must  be  poor,  let  us  all  be  poor.  "Pov- 
erty is  of  God,  riches  are  of  the  devil"  was  the  cry  of 
St.  Francis  and  of  St.  Dominic.  It  was  with  this  doc- 
trine that  Francis  and  his  little  brothers  tried  to  com- 


344  APPENDIX 

fort  that  sediment  of  humanity  that  lived  in  squalid  mis- 
ery outside  the  walls  of  the  Italian  cities  and  thronged 
their  narrow  streets. 

THE   FALL   OF    THE    MONASTERY. 

The  fourteenth  century  was  the  watershed  between 
medieval  and  modern  life.  In  that  century  the  old 
feudal  militia  gave  place  to  the  standing  army,  the 
knight-errant  to  the  professional  soldier.  The  system 
of  land-tenure  which  made  the  occupation  of  land  con- 
tingent upon  service  to  the  State  was  supplanted  by  that 
system  of  private,  individual  ownership,  which  now  pre- 
vails. The  medieval  military  class  became  the  land- 
owning nobility  and  gentry  of  modern  Europe.  This 
class  got  rid  of  its  duties  but  held  fast  to  its  privileges. 
And  so  we  have  the  land-problem  in  the  Europe  of 
to-day. 

THE  CONFISCATION  OF  MONASTIC  PROPERTY  IN  THE  INTER- 
ESTS  OF    NOBILITY   AND   GENTRY. 

The  Monasteries,  as  they  grew  rich,  ceased  to  be  the 
homes  of  an  austere  and  pious  peasantry,  they  were 
seized  upon  by  the  upper  classes  and  their  revenues  were 
wasted  in  luxury  and  licentiousness.  When  they  were 
suppressed,  as  in  England,  they  became  the  spoil  of  the 
old  military  and  the  rising  burgher  class.  The  common 
people  who  created  them  were  driven  off  their  lands  and 
from  their  gates,  and  the  home  of  the  monk  became  the 
manor  house  of  the  squire  and  the  palace  of  the  lord. 


APPENDIX  345 

This  suppression  of  the  Monastery,  throwing  as  it  did 
thousands  of  monks  on  the  road,  gave  rise  to  the  tramp- 
problem  and  greatly  aggravated  the  evils  of  poverty. 
Vagabondage,  beggary,  and  brigandage  were  rife  and 
called  for  stringent  measures  of  control.  The  poor, 
driven  off  the  land  by  the  nobles  and  the  gentry,  wan- 
dered from  place  to  place,  hungry  and  desolate,  begging, 
and  stealing,  a  nuisance  to  the  world  and  to  themselves 
and  were  hanged  in  batches  on  the  cross-road  gibbets. 

In  France  the  clergy  and  the  nobles  claimed  all  the 
privileges  and  shirked  all  the  duties  of  their  orders  and 
reduced  the  peasantry  to  that  state  of  misery  which  is  so 
vividly  described  by  Arthur  Young  and  which  was 
avenged  by  the  horrors  of  the  French  Revolution. 

THE  DISCOVERY  OF  INDIA  AND   AMERICA  CHANGES  THE 
CENTERS   OF    EXCHANGES. 

With  the  passage  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  the 
discovery  of  America  the  center  of  exchanges  passed  first 
to  Lisbon,  then  to  Amsterdam,  and  finally  to  London. 
These  events  were  followed  by  a  period  of  great  ap- 
parent prosperity.  Europe  was  enriched  by  the  wealth 
of  both  the  Indies.  The  conquest  of  Mexico  and  Peru 
brought  gold  and  silver  by  the  ship-load  into  Cadiz  and 
first  enriched  and  then  impoverished  Spain  and  South- 
ern Europe.  Prices  were  inflated,  vast  and  expensive 
wars  were  carried  on.  The  people  were  ground  between 
the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of  the  Church  and  State, 
and  Spain  sank  rapidly  from  the  first  to  the  third  State 


346  APPENDIX 

in  Europe  and  entered  upon  that  process  of  decline  from 
which  the  nation  has  never  recovered. 

The  conquest  and  spoliation  of  India  did  for  England 
what  the  conquest  of  Syria  and  Egypt  did  for  Rome, 
what  the  spoliation  of  the  Montezumas  and  the  Incas 
did  for  Spain.  It  enriched  the  few  and  impoverished 
the  many.  The  nabobs  raised  the  price  of  the  necessi- 
ties of  life,  they  increased  the  rents  of  the  landlords 
and  the  profits  of  the  merchants  and  by  doing  this  they 
made  the  condition  of  the  poor  more  hopeless  and  more 
miserable.  It  was  then  that  England  began  to  breed 
that  race  of  undersized,  undeveloped  men  which  is  to- 
day her  shame  and  her  terror.  England  would  have 
gone  the  way  of  Rome  and  of  Spain  to  economic  destruc- 
tion but  for  two  things.  First:  She  became  the  scene 
of  a  radical  revolution  in  methods  of  production;  and 
second :  Her  statesmen  had  the  wisdom,  at  a  critical 
time,  to  take  all  taxes  off  of  exports  and  imports  and  to 
make  the  trade  of  England  free  to  the  world. 

THE   MODERN    METHOD   OP    PRODUCTION. 

It  was  in  England  that  the  modern  method  of  pro- 
duction had  its  origin.  It  was  there  that  the  unlimited 
forces  of  nature  were  substituted  for  human  and  animal 
muscular  forces  to  produce  commodities  for  human  con- 
sumption. The  steam-engine,  the  spinning-jenny  and 
the  locomotive  were  all  the  invention  of  English  genius 
and  by  these  inventions  the  whole  aspect  of  human  life 
has  been  changed  and  the  abolition  of  poverty  made 
possible. 


APPENDIX  347 

THE   CHANGE   OF   BASE   FROM    A   DEFICIT   TO   A   SURPLUS. 

By  the  increased  producing-power  consequent  upon 
these  inventions  the  economic  situation  was  changed 
from  that  of  a  chronic  deficit  to  a  chronic  surplus. 
Modern  industrial  conditions  have  developed  a  new  and 
strange  disease.  It  is  the  disease  of  over-production. 
In  olden  times  men  and  women  had  to  live  in  poverty 
because  there  was  not  enough  to  go  around,  in  our  day 
they  have  to  suffer  because  there  is  too  much.  The  in- 
vention of  labor-saving  machinery  and  the  organization 
of  the  labor-force,  as  a  consequence  of  that  invention, 
into  the  factory  system  have  increased  the  productive 
powers  of  mankind  to  an  extent  that  baffles  calcula- 
tion; and  the  production  of  commodities  is  limited  only 
by  the  capacity  of  mankind  to  consume  them.  Hard 
times  come  in  these  days  not  from  scarcity  but  from 
plethora.  There  was  some  excuse  for  the  poverty  of  the 
ancient  and  the  medieval  world;  but  in  our  modern 
world  poverty  is  inexcusable,  a  shame  and  a  disgrace. 
In  all  that  relates  to  production  the  modern  world  is 
a  marvel  of  efficiency;  in  all  that  relates  to  distribution 
the  modern  world  is  a  marvel  of  stupidity. 

EVILS  OF  POVERTY  NOT  CURED  BY  MODERN  METHOD  OF 
PRODUCTION. 

The  introduction  of  labor-saving  machinery  and  the 
establishment  of  the  factory  system  while  it  has  vastly 
increased  the  productive  power  of  mankind  has  been,  in 
many  respects,  detrimental  to  the  interests  of  the  work- 


348  APPENDIX 

ing-class.  So  far  from  solving  the  problem  of  poverty 
this  method  of  increased  production  has  so  aggravated 
the  evils  of  poverty  that  they  threaten  the  destruction 
of  our  modern  civilization.  Unless  some  cure  for  these 
evils  can  be  found,  society  as  now  constituted  will  perish 
and  the  human  race  will  fall  to  a  lower  level,  from 
which  it  will  have  to  make  a  long  and  painful  ascent. 

The  industrial  revolution,  consequent  upon  the  intro- 
duction of  labor-saving  machinery,  gave  rise  to  an  eco- 
nomic theory  which  is  now  and  for  a  long  time  has  been 
the  orthodox  theory  of  the  economic  world.  The  cardi- 
nal principle  of  this  theory  is  the  right  of  the  individual 
to  freedom  of  contract.  Prior  to  the  adoption  of  this 
theory  the  condition  of  the  working-classes,  and  indeed  of 
all  classes,  had  been  a  condition  of  status.  As  men  were 
born  so  they  lived  and  so  they  died.  This  tendency  to 
heredity  is  a  natural  tendency. 

CHANGE   OF   BASIS  OF   INDUSTRIAL  LIFE   FROM    STATUS   TO 
CONTRACT. 

All  social  institutions  are  favorable  to  the  hereditary 
principle.  The  church  teaches  the  people  to  be  content 
in  that  state  of  life  in  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  call 
them.  In  ancient  and  medieval  times  the  state  inter- 
fered at  every  point  with  the  freedom  of  contract;  by 
taxes  on  exports  and  imports  and  by  monopolies  granted 
to  favorites  men  were  deprived  of  the  right  of  spend- 
ing their  money  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  own 
judgment;  they  could  not  buy  in  the  cheapest  nor  sell 
in  the  dearest  markets.     The  various  occupations  were 


APPENDIX  349 

organized  into  gilds  that  restricted  the  freedom  of  con- 
tract. The  member  of  the  gilds  must  work  according 
to  the  rules  of  the  gild,  receiving  gild  wages  and  work- 
ing gild  hours.  Any  violation  of  the  law  of  the  gild 
was  punished  by  expulsion  and  loss  of  the  right  to  work. 
Apprentices  were  indentured  for  seven  years  and  a  run- 
away apprentice  had  no  more  rights  than  a  runaway 
slave.  This  system  gave  to  life  stability  and  assurance; 
the  individual  was  both  restricted  and  protected  by  the 
restraints  of  the  gild  and  the  limitations  to  individual 
freedom  enforced  by  Church  and  State.  As  long  as  a 
man  staid  in  his  place  he  was  reasonably  sure  of  his  liv- 
ing.    His  life  was  monotonous,  but  it  was  secure. 

The  adventurous  spirit  consequent  upon  the  discovery 
of  new  methods  could  not  abide  this  condition  of  status. 
The  present  era  is  the  outcome  of  the  revolutionary 
movement  which  has  freed  the  individual  from  the 
shackles  of  society.  In  the  Renaissance  the  "Western 
World  cast  off  the  deadening  authority  of  the  schools; 
in  the  Reformation  it  broke  the  power  of  the  Church ;  in 
the  democratic  movement  it  has  limited  the  authority  of 
the  State  and  in  the  economic  revolution  it  has  destroyed 
the  life  of  the  old  gilds. 

THE   DEIFICATION   OP   LAISSEZ-FAIRE. 

The  God  of  the  present  orthodox  economy  is  Laissez- 
Faire.  This  God  says  to  Church,  State,  and  gild: 
"Hands-off!  Let  us  alone."  Your  restraints  are  not 
helps  but  hindrances.  If  you  leave  men  to  themselves, 
each  man  will  naturally  seek  to  do  the  best  for  himself; 


350  APPENDIX 

and  what  is  best  for  himself  is  best  for  all.  He  will 
buy  at  the  lowest  and  sell  at  the  highest  possible  price. 
All  the  affairs  of  life  are  to  be  regulated  not  by  State 
or  Church  or  gilds  but  by  individual  men  dealing  with 
individual  men.  Life  is  to  be  carried  on  by  a  continual 
chaffering  in  the  market.  The  God  Laissez-Faire  re- 
tained the  State  for  police  purposes  only.  It  was  the 
business  of  the  State  to  enforce  the  conditions  of  the 
contracts  which  men  made  with  men.  Laissez-Faire  had 
no  particular  use  for  the  Church,  and  its  power  and 
influence  have  withered  under  the  scorching  heat  of 
this  economic  deity.  The  old  God  of  the  pietistic 
age  is  permitted  to  exist  as  an  object  of  occasional 
worship,  but  he  is  not  allowed  to  meddle  in  the 
practical  affairs  of  life.  Modern  business  is  business, 
and  to  business  it  subordinates  both  politics  and  religion. 
In  our  time  the  prizes  of  life  are  to  be  found  in  the  busi- 
ness world.  And  the  business  man  outranks  the  priest, 
the  soldier,  and  the  statesman. 

THE   POWER   OF   LAISSEZ-FAIRE. 

As  a  god,  Laissez-Faire  has  been  justified  of  all  his 
children.  He  has  served  the  purpose  of  his  creators 
as  no  other  god  ever  has.  The  gods  of  the  ancient  world 
sought  to  make  men  brave  and  women  fair  and  they 
had  only  a  measurable  degree  of  success;  the  god  of 
the  Medieval  Age  sought  to  make  men  good  and  women 
pure,  and,  except  in  the  case  of  a  small  minority,  he 
failed  miserably ;  but  this  god  Laissez-Faire,  whose  prov- 
ince it  is  to  make  men  rich,  has  succeeded  beyond  the 


APPENDIX  351 

visions  of  his  prophets.  Not  Adam  Smith  himself  could 
believe  it  all,  were  he  to-day  to  see  the  world  as  his 
doctrine  has  made  it.  Since  the  days  of  Laissez-Faire 
the  wealth  of  the  world  has  increased  in  geometrical 
ratio.  Unto  those  who  worship  him  Laissez-Faire  has 
added  luxury  to  luxury  until  they  are  drowning  in  an 
ocean  of  oil  and  wine,  and  are  sinking  under  a  burden 
of  gold  and  silver.  To  gain  the  favor  of  Laissez-Faire 
there  is  one  thing  needful,  which  is  that  which  every 
god  demands  of  his  devotees,  and  that  is  that  the  wor- 
shiper shall  sacrifice  every  other  interest  to  the  inter- 
est of  his  God.  The  saying,  business  is  business,  is  the 
creed  of  Laissez-Faire  and  expresses  that  complete  devo- 
tion of  the  devotee  by  which  only  the  favor  of  the  deity 
can  be  secured.  In  this  service  men  have  sacrificed  the 
fairest  children  of  the  human  soul;  justice,  mercy,  and 
truth  have  all  been  consumed  in  the  fires  of  this  brazen 
Moloch. 

THE   DELUSION   OF   FREEDOM    OF    CONTRACT. 

There  was  never  a  greater  delusion  than  that  free- 
dom of  contract  was  secured  between  man  and  man  by 
the  removal  of  the  restraints  of  the  Church,  the  State, 
and  the  gilds.  It  is  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  by 
the  removal  of  these  restraints  freedom  of  contract  was 
for  the  greater  number  of  men  made  forever  impossible. 
Freedom  of  contract  holds  only  between  equals.  A  con- 
tract is  free  only  when  both  of  the  parties  are  at  lib- 
erty to  accept  or  reject  its  conditions.  Every  contract 
is  vitiated  by  fraud  or  duress.  When  one  party  either 
deceives  or  forces  the  other  party  the  contract  is  void 


352  APPENDIX 

and  of  no  effect.  When  freedom  of  contract  became 
the  economic  law  of  the  Western  World,  the  sources  of 
wealth  and  the  means  of  production  were  in  the  hands 
of  a  limited  and  privileged  class.  The  old  ruling  mili- 
tary class  was  in  possession  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
land  and  the  newly  enfranchised  burgher  class  had  in 
their  keeping  the  available  capital  of  the  country. 

FREEDOM    OF    CONTRACT   A   REALITY   AS   BETWEEN 
CAPITALIST   AND   LANDLORD. 

These  two  classes  were  the  educated  and  possessing 
classes  of  the  community.  They  were  necessary  each  to 
the  other  and  formed  a  natural  combination.  They 
were  in  control  of  the  governmental  machinery,  and 
the  police  and  military  forces  were  at  their  command. 
Freedom  of  contract  within  these  two  classes  was  a  real- 
ity, for  these  men  could  bargain  with  one  another  on 
equal  terms. 

CONTRACT    BETWEEN    LANDLORD    AND    CAPITALIST    AND    LA- 
BORER  VOID   FOR   WANT   OF   FREEDOM. 

But  when  the  same  principle  was  applied  to  the  rela- 
tions of  the  landlord  and  the  capitalist  with  the  laborer 
it  became  the  grimmest  of  all  practical  jokes.  When 
the  laborer  who  was  without  land,  without  money,  with- 
out learning,  was  cast  loose  from  all  the  protecting  re- 
straints of  the  Church,  the  State,  and  the  gilds  and  was 
sent  naked  of  everything  except  his  rights  to  freedom 
of  contract  to  make  his  bargain  with  the  landlord  and 
the  capitalist  it  was  like  sending  the  lamb  to  make  a 


APPENDIX  353 

contract  with  the  wolf.  Such  a  contract  could  have  but 
one  result;  the  lamb  became  at  once  the  prey  of  the 
wolf. 

The  revolution  in  industrial  methods,  consequent  upon 
the  invention  of  labor-saving  machinery,  placed  the 
whole  labor  class  at  the  mercy  of  the  land-owning  and 
capitalistic  class.  Prior  to  the  application  of  steam  to 
labor-saving  machinery,  that  part  of  the  population 
which  was  engaged  in  changing  the  raw  material  of  the 
world  to  human  uses  was  comparatively  independent. 

THE   WORKMAN    SEPARATED   FROM    HIS   TOOL. 

The  man  who  made  a  coat  or  a  pair  of  shoes  could 
bargain  on  equal  terms  with  the  man  who  needed  a  coat 
or  a  pair  of  shoes,  though  the  one  might  be  a  lord  and 
the  other  a  tailor  or  a  cobbler.  Prior  to  the  industrial 
revolution  there  was  only  one  considerable  monopoly  in 
England  and  that  was  the  land  monopoly,  but  with  that 
revolution  a  new  and  more  far-reaching  monopoly  came 
into  being  and  that  was  the  tool  monopoly.  Because  of 
this  change  in  economic  method  the  hand  of  the  work- 
man was  separated  from  his  head,  he  lost  his  independ- 
ence ;  he  became  a  cog  in  a  great  machine. 

THE   NEW   SOURCE   OF   WEALTH   IS   THE   MACHINE. 

It  is  commonly  supposed  that  when  the  Socialist  as- 
serts that  labor  is  the  source,  and  therefore  the  measure, 
of  all  wealth,  he  has  in  mind  manual  or  muscular  labor 
only.  There  never  was  a  more  maddening  error.  Mere 
muscular  power  has  never  created  wealth.     As  long  as 


354  APPENDIX 

man  depends  solely  upon  muscle  for  his  living  he  is  as 
poor  as  the  bushman  of  Australia.  He  lives  on  roots 
and  snails  and  worms,  and  his  distended  belly  is  the  sure 
sign  of  his  impoverished  condition.  Wealth  is  the  crea- 
tion of  the  intelligence.  It  is  by  means  of  the  tool  that 
riches  increase.  The  whole  course  of  economic  evolu- 
tion has  been  simply  the  evolution  of  the  tool,  from  the 
crooked  stick  to  the  chilled  plow,  from  the  stone  ham- 
mer to  the  steam  sledge,  from  the  bone  needle  to  the 
Singer  machine.  Man  has  progressed  just  in  proportion 
to  his  ability  to  use  his  brain  to  ease  his  muscle  and  to 
create  a  tool  to  supply  the  deficiency  of  his  hands.  Our 
modern  wealth,  is  only  in  a  limited  degree,  the  product 
of  manual  labor.  It  is  for  the  most  part  the  product 
not  of  muscular  but  of  brain  power.  It  is  not  the  man, 
to-day,  it  is  the  machine  that  is  the  controlling  factor  in 
the  production  of  commodities;  and  the  machine  is  noth- 
ing but  organized  thought. 

INCREASING   MACHINE  EFFICIENCY  CAUSED  DECREASING   DE- 
MAND  FOR   MANUAL   EFFICIENCY. 

This  increasing  efficiency  of  the  machine  is  followed 
as  a  result  by  a  decreasing  demand  for  all-round  effi- 
ciency in  manual  labor.  The  man  who  cuts  by  ma- 
chinery the  heel  of  a  shoe  has  a  thousand  times  less  need 
for  manual  efficiency  than  a  man  who  by  hand  makes 
the  whole  shoe.  Not  only  does  the  machine  thus  lower 
the  quality  of  hand  or  muscular  labor,  but  it  decreases 
its  quantity.  The  more  a  machine  can  do  the  less  there 
is  for  men  to  do. 


APPENDIX  355 

It  is  this  fact,  so  largely  ignored  by  orthodox  econo- 
mists, that  placed  the  working-man  in  the  power  of  the 
land-owner  and  the  capitalist.  These  classes  owned  the 
raw  material  and  the  tools  and  they  needed  the  mus- 
cular power  of  the  working-man  only  in  some  neces- 
sary but  comparatively  unimportant  operations  in  the 
process  that  transformed  the  raw  material  into  the  fin- 
ished commodity.  Every  contract  of  the  landlord  and 
capitalistic  class  with  the  laborer  was  a  contract  under 
duress.  These  owners  of  raw  material  and  tools  said  to 
the  hand  laborers :  ' '  Work  on  our  terms  or  starve, ' '  and 
by  and  by  they  said  with  greater  rigor:  "Work  on  our 
terms  and  starve." 

WEALTH   AND   POVERTY   INCREASE   IN    NEARLY   EQUAL 
RATIO. 

While  the  modern  methods  of  production  increased 
the  wealth  of  the  world  a  thousand-fold,  it  decreased  the 
value  of  mere  labor,  and  as  a  consequence  the  purchas- 
ing-power of  the  laborer  in  the  same  proportion.  It  is 
this  decreased  power  of  the  laborer  to  purchase  that 
is  the  cause  of  modern  commercial  crises.  Our  store- 
houses are  at  times  bursting  with  food  and  clothing  for 
which  the  people  are  starving  with  cold  and  hunger. 
But  the  naked  back  and  the  hungry  belly  cannot  have 
the  surplus  food  and  clothing  because  these,  being  the 
property  of  the  land-owner  and  tool-owner,  can  be  had 
only  for  the  price  which  these  place  upon  them.  So  at 
both  ends  the  laborer  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  land-owner 
and  tool-owner.     In  neither  selling  nor  buying  is  he  a 


356  APPENDIX 

free  agent,  lie  must  sell  for  what  he  can  get  and  he  must 
buy  for  what  he  must  pay. 

THE  INCREASE  OF  POVERTY. 

It  is  because  of  this  condition  in  the  economic  world 
that  poverty  has  increased  almost  as  rapidly  as  wealth. 
In  his  survey  of  London  conditions,  Chas.  Booth  re- 
ports thirty-five  per  cent  of  the  population  as  living  in 
poverty. 

The  factory  system  was  hardly  established  with  its 
principles  of  competition  and  freedom  of  contract  before 
it  resulted  in  such  poverty,  with  its  consequent  wretched- 
ness and  human  degradation  that  all  England  was  ap- 
palled. 

THE   FACTORY   LAWS   NECESSARY   FOR    THE   PROTECTION 
OF    THE   WORKING-CLASS. 

The  factory  acts  in  England  are  in  contravention  of 
the  right  to  freedom  of  contract.  These  acts  were  passed 
to  remedy  intolerable  evils  which  were  the  result  of  the 
free  play  of  the  principle  of  Laissez-Faire.  In  the 
mines  and  the  factories,  men  and  women  and  children 
were  exploited  in  the  interests  of  mine-owner  and  fac- 
tory-lord as  men,  women,  and  children  had  never  been 
exploited  before.  The  slaves  of  Crassus  in  the  mines  of 
Sardinia  were  not  more  miserable  than  were  the  work- 
ers in  the  mines  of  the  black  country  of  England  in  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Little  children 
under  ten  years  of  age  dragged  coal-cars  through  the 
narrow  ways  of  the  mines.     Naked  women,  lost  to  every 


APPENDIX  357 

semblance  of  decency,  became  very  Yahoos  in  that  dark 
underworld  of  misery  and  death ;  the  men,  brutalized  by 
degrading  toil,  were  happy  only  when  they  were  drunk. 
And  the  factories  above-ground  were  little  better  than 
the  mines  beneath.  In  these  factories  children' from  six 
years  of  age  and  upward  were  worked  for  fourteen  hours 
a  day.  These  children  were  the  children  of  the  very 
poor,  many  of  them  sent  from  the  workhouses  of  the 
country  to  labor  in  the  factories  and  so  relieve  the  va- 
rious parishes  of  the  cost  of  their  keep.  Women  were 
subjected  to  the  same  rigorous  terms  of  toil.  Fourteen 
hours  was  a  day's  work,  after  which  the  women  could 
keep  themselves  clean,  look  after  their  babies,  and  comfort 
their  husbands.  The  wages  paid  for  this  inhuman  labor 
were  just  sufficient  to  preserve  life  at  its  lowest  stand- 
ards. These  slaves  of  the  mine  and  the  mill  were  ill- 
fed,  ill-clothed  and  ill-housed.  They  had  none  of  the 
comforts  or  decencies  of  life.  They  were  fast  lapsing 
into  a  condition  of  bestiality  that  threatened  the  exist- 
ence of  the  human  race  in  England. 

FEEBLE  EFFORTS  TO  SHORTEN  HOURS  AND  IMPROVE 
CONDITIONS. 

It  was  then  that  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  led  the  great 
movement  for  reform  which  was  legalized  in  the  factory 
acts.  The  hours  of  labor  were  limited,  conditions  of 
labor  were  regulated  and  the  State  once  more  resumed 
the  right  to  be  a  party  to  the  contracts  which  it  was 
its  duty  to  enforce.  At  first  these  efforts  on  the  part 
of  the  State  to  interfere  with  freedom  of  contract  were 


358  APPENDIX 

very  timid.  They  stopped  with  the  regulation  of  child 
and  female  labor.  The  earlier  factory  acts  provided 
that  children  under  twelve  years  must  not  work  more 
than  ten  hours  a  day,  and  made  some  equally  feeble 
reforms  in  regard  to  the  labor  of  women;  but  not 
even  Lord  Shaftesbury  dared  to  interfere  with  freedom 
of  contract  in  the  case  of  grown  men.  The  men  were 
left  at  the  mercy  of  the  masters,  to  make  such  terms  as 
they  could  and  so  were  compelled  to  labor  for  long  hours 
at  a  low  wage  and  to  bear  the  whole  weight  of  loss  that 
came  from  sickness  and  accident.  The  condition  of  the 
working-classes  in  spite  of  parliamentary  interference 
tended  ever  downward.  The  poor  became  poorer  as  the 
rich  became  richer. 

THE   POOR   DEPRIVED   OF   POLITICAL   PRIVILEGES, 
EDUCATION,    ETC. 

The  poor  were  deprived  of  political  rights,  of  edu- 
cational advantages,  and  of  religious  privileges.  The 
electoral  franchise  was  in  the  hands  of  the  rich  and  the 
privileged.  Education  was  a  private  concern.  The  pub- 
lic schools  and  the  universities  were  in  the  possession  of 
the  upper  classes  and  were  select  and  expensive.  The 
national  Church  was  a  function  of  the  State  and  was  used 
as  a  means  of  livelihood  by  the  younger  sons  of  the  no- 
bility and  gentry. 

In  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  cleavage 
between  Disraeli's  two  nations,  the  rich  and  the  poor, 
was  growing  wider  and  wider  and  would  have  become 
hopeless  but  for  two  interfering  forces  which  came  to 


APPENDIX  359 

the  help  of  the  State  in  its  effort  to  cure  this  schism  in 
the  life  of  the.  people. 

THE  EVANGELICAL   MOVEMENT. 

The  first  of  these  forces  was  that  of  religion.  It  is 
to  the  everlasting  credit  of  the  Evangelical  movement 
that  it  stood,  like  Aaron,  in  the  name  of  God,  between 
the  living  and  the  dead  and  staid,  in  a  measure,  this 
plague  of  poverty  that  was  wasting  the  lives  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  Evangelical  religion  with  its  doctrine  of  the 
inestimable  value  of  a  human  soul  came  as  a  great  light 
to  that  mass  of  degraded  humanity  that  sat  in  dark- 
ness and  lived  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death. 
"Wesley,  at  the  beginning  of  this  period,  repeated  the 
experience  of  St.  Francis.  He  so  preached  the  love  of 
God  to  the  lowest  of  the  people,  that  he  became  to  them 
as  an  angel  of  God  and  they  listened  to  him  with  tears  of 
hope  running  down  their  cheeks.  It  was  the  fervor  of 
the  Evangelical  religion  that  inspired  the  Earl  of  Shaftes- 
bury and  made  him  the  tribune  of  the  people  in  the 
Houses  of  Parliament  and  in  the  Courts  of  the  King.  It 
was  the  Evangelical  religion  that  roused  Robert  Raikes 
from  his  ease  and  made  him  the  apostle  of  learning  to  the 
letterless  masses.  His  Sunday  Schools  for  ragged  chil- 
dren were  the  beginning  of  popular  education  in  Eng- 
land. It  was  the  Evangelical  religion  that  inspired  Wil- 
berforce  and  Zachary  Macaulay  with  a  love  for  the  negro 
slave  that  would  not  rest  until  it  had  secured  his  emanci- 
pation. It  was  this  same  religious  fervor  in  its  higher 
forms  that  sent  Clarkson  and  Elizabeth  Fry  upon  their 


360  APPENDIX 

visits  to  the  prisons  of  England  and  the  Continent  which 
led  to  the  mitigation  of  some  of  the  more  dreadful  abuses 
of  the  prison  system. 

The  Evangelical  movement  has  done  its  work  and  gone 
its  way,  but  it  has  left  behind  a  fruitage  for  good  such 
as  can  be  credited  to  but  few  religious  movements  of  the 
world.  It  has  enlarged  the  borders  of  human  liberty ;  it 
has  given  the  franchise  to  an  ever  increasing  number  of 
Englishmen ;  it  has  given  free  and  compulsory  education 
to  the  children  of  the  nation ;  it  was  the  stay  and  support 
of  the  great  churchman,  Gladstone,  in  his  liberal  policies ; 
and  it  has  now  given  to  the  people  of  England  the  budget 
of  Lloyd  George. 

TRADES-UNIONS   AN  EFFORT   TO   CORRECT  INDUSTRIAL  EVILS. 

The  second  force  that  came  to  the  rescue  of  humanity 
from  the  ravages  of  Laissez-Faire  was  Trades-Unionism 
which  was  the  revival  of  the  principle  of  the  old  gilds 
adapted  to  new  conditions.  The  old  gild  differed  from 
the  modern  trades-union  in  that  it  included  both  masters 
and  men.  The  component  elements  of  the  gilds  were 
masters,  journey-men,  and  apprentices.  These  classes 
were  not  exclusive,  not  antagonistic.  The  apprentice  in 
due  time  became  a  journey-man  and  the  journey-man 
could  at  any  time  become  a  master.  The  trades  were 
simple,  the  tools  inexpensive,  and  the  journey-man  might 
at  his  pleasure  set  up  his  own  shop  and  become  his  own 
master.  The  old  gilds  existed  among  other  things  for 
the  purpose  of  protecting  the  consumer  from  the  evil  of 
untrained,  inefficient  workmanship  and  to  shield  the  art 


APPENDIX  361 

from  the  ravages  of  the  corrupt  master  and  the  dissolute 
workman.  The  modern  trades-union  has  a  different  com- 
position and  a  different  purpose.  Its  membership  con- 
sists of  workmen  only.  Neither  masters  nor  apprentices 
can  belong  to  the  union.  The  chief  purpose  of  the  union 
is  to  secure  for  its  members  a  living  wage  under  living 
conditions.  The  working-class  perceived  at  once  the 
helplessness  of  the  individual  workman  in  his  dealings 
with  the  master  class.  The  irony  of  the  doctrine  of  free- 
dom of  contract  entered  deeply  into  the  soul  of  the  work- 
ing-man. He  saw  that  he  was  no  more  free  to  fix  the 
price  of  his  labor  than  was  the  dead  carcass  of  a  sheep 
to  fix  the  price  of  its  flesh.  His  labor  was  a  commodity 
in  the  market  subject  to  the  law  of  supply  and  demand 
and  the  invention  of  labor-saving  machinery  was  the 
cause  of  a  constant  glut  in  the  labor  market.  Because  of 
this  there  was  an  ever  decreasing  demand  in  the  presence 
of  an  ever  increasing  supply.  It  is  this  condition  of  the 
labor  market  that  causes  the  constant  disturbance  of  the 
industrial  world.  It  is  this  over-supply  that  tends  to 
force  the  wages  of  labor  down  to  the  starvation-point. 
The  effort  of  the  trades-union  is  to  prevent,  if  possible, 
the  working  of  this  natural  law. 

CORPORATE    CONTRACT    FOR    INDIVIDUAL    CONTRACT. 

It  seeks  to  substitute  corporate  contract  for  individual 
contract  and  by  this  means  to  shorten  the  hours  and  raise 
the  wages  of  labor.  In  this  struggle  for  better  condi- 
tions, trades-unionism  stands  for  the  closed  shop  and  re- 
sorts to  the  strike  and  the  boycott.     Unionism  says  to  the 


362  APPENDIX 

individual :  ' '  Workman,  you  must  surrender  your  indi- 
vidual freedom  in  the  interests  of  the  whole  working- 
class."  It  says:  "Your  apparent  freedom  of  contract 
is  not  a  reality;  it  is  a  delusion.  Under  the  whip  of 
necessity  you  are  free  only  to  take  the  lowest  wage  the 
master  class  will  offer.  You  are  free  only  to  underbid 
and  overwork  your  fellow-workmen,  and  such  individual 
freedom  can  result  only  in  a  common  slavery.  In  the 
interests  of  your  higher  freedom,  we  demand  that  you 
surrender  your  individual  liberty  and  if  you  do  not,  we 
will  brand  you  as  a  traitor  to  the  cause  of  labor  and  drive 
you  out  of  the  labor  world."  To  the  master  class,  the 
trades-union  says,  "We  will  not  treat  with  you  as  indi- 
viduals but  only  as  a  union.  You  must  pay  union  prices, 
employ  union  men  and  work  under  union  conditions.  If 
you  do  not,  we  will  ruin  your  business.  We  will  neither 
make  nor  buy  your  commodities." 

TRADES-UNIONISM . 

In  Unionism  the  working-class  is  organized  both  for 
offense  and  defense.  It  is  engaged  in  a  war  to  secure  a 
living  wage  under  living  conditions. 

PROPERTY    AND    LABOR    ORGANIZED    FOR    WAR. 

It  is  this  state  of  war  that  is  threatening  the  stability  of 
the  social  order.  The  working-class  is  becoming  both 
powerful  and  embittered.  Both  the  working-class  and 
the  employing-classes  are  organized  into  governments 
with  their  laws,  officers,  and  powers  of  taxation.  These 
two  nations  of  Disraeli  stand  in  battle  array,  the  one 


APPENDIX  363 

against  the  other;  they  carry  on  their  warfare  in  dis- 
dain of  the.  government  of  the  State.  The  employing- 
class  calls  in  the  police  power  of  the  government  to  de- 
fend its  property  rights  and  the  laboring-class  assails 
that  power  in  defense  of  its  personal  rights.  Unless  the 
State  can  reestablish  its  authority  over  both  these  fac- 
tions, the  State  will  perish  and  for  a  long  period  chaos 
will  reign  in  its  stead.  In  fact  we  are  under  the  reign  of 
chaos  now.     Property  flouts  the  State  and  labor  hates  it. 

THE  MAN   AND   THE   MACHINE. 

Before  proceeding  further,  let  us  for  a  moment  con- 
sider the  effect  of  the  machine  upon  human  faculty  and 
its  consequent  result  in  human  poverty.  The  inevitable 
effect  of  the  machine  is  to  limit  human  faculty.  The 
subdivision  of  labor  which  is  the  result  of  machine 
methods  causes  the  worker  to  be  wonderfully  expert  in 
one  operation  to  the  loss  of  ability  in  every  other  direc- 
tion. The  constant  repetition  of  one  action  makes  that  ac- 
tion automatic.  As  a  consequence,  the  worker  is  nothing 
other  than  a  part  of  the  machine.  He  does  not  control  it : 
it  controls  him.  Just  as  each  cog  in  the  machine  repeats 
a  given  operation  so  many  times  a  minute  so  the  man,  the 
woman,  or  the  child  is  compelled  to  repeat  the  same  oper- 
ation so  many  times  a  minute.  In  this  operation  only  one 
faculty  of  the  mind  and  one  set  of  nerves  and  muscles  are 
employed.  The  effect  of  this  needs  no  comment.  Both 
physically  and  spiritually  it  is  ruinous  to  the  nature  of 
man.  It  cripples  the  body  and  dwarfs  the  mind  and  en- 
feebles the  soul.    "We  who  are  not  the  slaves  of  a  machine 


364  APPENDIX 

can  have  no  notion  of  the  deadening  effect  of  that  con- 
stant repetition,  minute  after  minute,  hour  after  hour,  of 
the  same  motion.  At  first  the  nerves  and  muscles  rebel 
and  the  worker  can  keep  on  only  by  a  supreme  act  of  the 
will.  "When  the  action  becomes  automatic  the  strain 
ceases  and  the  worker  goes  through  the  operation  with- 
out thought  and  without  feeling.  It  is  the  sad  lot  of 
the  modern  workman  that  he  cannot  take  any  pleasure  in 
his  work.  His  task  is  dull  to  deadness;  what  he  does  is 
insignificant,  and  the  only  thing  he  has  to  think  about  is 
his  wages.  This  impoverishment  of  the  man  by  his  work 
is  a  matter  that  calls  for  grave  consideration.  The  work- 
ing-men know  this  danger  and  because  of  it  they  demand 
shorter  hours.  It  is  this  effect  of  the  machine  upon  the 
man  that  is  responsible  for  much  of  the  poverty  in  the 
modern  industrial  world.  The  insistent  call  upon  one 
nerve-center  leads  to  early  exhaustion  and  premature  old 
age.  It  is  because  of  this  that  the  trades  which  still  re- 
quire considerable  manual  dexterity,  such  as  the  building- 
trades  and  some  departments  of  the  tailoring-trades  are 
in  a  preferred  class.  Those  engaged  in  these  trades  are 
more  fully  developed  intellectually  and  have  a  longer 
labor-life.  Machine-driven  men  and  women  are  worn  out 
before  fifty  and  become  thus  early  a  burden  on  the  com- 
munity. 

CAUSES   OF   POVERTY   REMEDIABLE. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  causes  of  poverty  in  the  modern 
world  are  in  a  measure  remediable.  The  causes  do  not  in- 
•here  in  natural  laws  and  forces  but  are  created  by  the 
customs  and  laws  of  men.     And  what  man  has  created 


APPENDIX  365 

man  can  destroy.  He  can  change  his  customs  and  amend 
his  laws,  and  by  so  doing  can  alter  the  face  of  society 
and  can  banish  poverty  as  he  has  already  banished  the 
plague.  The  chief  causes  of  poverty  are  land-monopoly, 
tool-monopoly,  and  trade-monopoly,  which  are  entrenched 
behind  laws  and  customs  that  give  the  few  control  over 
the  sources  of  wealth  and  enable  them  to  grow  rich  by  ex- 
ploiting the  unprivileged  classes  of  the  community. 

THE    LAND-MONOPOLY. 

It  is  against  the  first  two  of  these  sources  of  poverty 
that  the  budget  of  Lloyd  George  is  chiefly  directed.  The 
Chancellor  is  using  the  power  of  taxation  to  accomplish 
a  reform  in  the  relation  of  the  people  of  England  to  the 
soil  of  England.  Under  present  conditions  the  people  of 
England  are  a  landless  people.  They  have  no  title  to  the 
ground  upon  which  they  live.  The  ownership  of  their 
island  is  vested  in  a  very  small  minority  who  dictate 
terms  of  occupation  to  the  great  majority.  The  peers  of 
England  own  a  larger  part  of  the  land  of  England. 
They  use  it  for  parks  and  game  preserves,  they  build 
palaces  and  stables  upon  it  for  themselves,  their  horses, 
and  their  hounds,  while  the  people  suffer  for  want  of 
breathing-space  and  are  cut  away  from  the  natural 
sources  of  life.  The  title  of  the  peers  to  their  land  is 
established  by  immemorial  usage  and  is  buttressed  by 
legal  enactment.  In  the  estimation  of  the  peers  the  ex- 
istence of  England  is  bound  up  with  the  right  of  the 
peers  to  possess  the  land.  If  the  Duke  of  Westminster 
should  lose  any  of  the  thousands  of  acres  which  he  holds 


366  APPENDIX 

in  London,  Eaton,  and  elsewhere ;  if  he  should  have  to 
pay  any  rental,  in  the  way  of  taxation  to  the  State  for  the 
protection  of  his  property,  if  the  people  should  gain  any 
right  or  title  directly  or  indirectly  in  his  domain,  then 
England  would  fall  from  her  proud  position  as  the  im- 
perial nation  of  the  world.  The  budget  of  Lloyd  George 
was  thrown  out  by  the  peers  because  they  saw  in  it  a 
menace  to  their  existence  as  a  land-monopoly  class.  But 
the  budget  in  and  of  itself  hardly  scratched  the  scab  of 
this  abuse  of  land-monopoly.  The  budget  makes  no  at- 
tack upon  existing  titles.  It  does  not  propose  a  re- 
distribution of  the  land :  it  only  provides  that  the  land 
shall  pay  to  the  people  a  small  portion  of  the  cost  of 
its  keep. 

UNEARNED-INCREMENT    TAX. 

The  simple  principle  that  the  increase  in  population  in- 
creases the  value  of  land  is  made  the  basis  of  taxation. 
It  is  the  people,  not  the  owners,  who  create  this  increased 
value  and  it  is  only  fair  that  the  people  should  share  in 
what  the  people  create.  Lloyd  George  proposes  to  take 
one-fifth  of  this  increment  for  the  uses  of  the  people.  In- 
stead of  crying  against  this  modest  tax  the  land-owners 
should  thank  the  Chancellor  for  his  moderation.  Instead 
of  taking  a  fifth  he  might  be  within  his  right  and  take  it 
all. 

TAX   ON  LAND-HELD-FOR-A-RISE. 

By  a  tax  on  unused  lands  held  for  a  rise  the  Chancellor 
strikes  a  blow  at  an  evil  which  is  a  fruitful  cause  of  pov- 
erty and  distress.     To  hold  land  in  idleness  for  specula- 


APPENDIX  367 

tive  purposes  in  the  midst  of  a  growing  population  is 
a  crime  against  the  community.  The  man  who  does  this 
should  pay  the  penalty  in  the  shape  of  severe  taxation. 
He  should  be  forced  to  put  his  land  on  the  market  at  a 
fair  price.  The  effort  of  Lloyd  George  to  bring  the  land 
into  use  has  earned  him  the  enviable  hatred  of  the  land- 
owning class. 

TOOL-MONOPOLY   CURTAILED   OF   ITS  POWER   BY   TAXES 
ON   INCOMES   AND   INHERITANCES. 

By  the  power  of  taxation  the  Chancellor  endeavors  not 
only  to  stay  the  ravages  of  land-monopoly  but  also  to 
mitigate  the  evils  of  tool-monopoly.  The  tool-owner  ab- 
sorbs an  undue  share  of  the  profit  of  the  tool.  The  tool 
is  a  social  product  and  society  has  an  interest  in  it.  The 
tool  produces  commodities  at  the  cost  of  human  life  and 
happiness.  On  one  side  the  machine  throws  out  woolen 
and  cotton  cloth,  hammered  steel  and  molded  iron;  on 
the  other  side  it  casts  out  dead  nerves  and  broken  bones, 
dwarfed  intelligences  and  weary  souls.  The  tool  is  re- 
lentless. It  makes  no  allowance  for  the  feebleness  of  flesh 
and  blood.  Hood's  song  of  the  shirt,  "It  is  not  linen  ye 
are  wearing  out  but  human  beings'  lives,"  is  the  song  of 
the  machine.  It  creates  material  wealth  at  the  cost  of 
human  poverty.  It  is  the  purpose  of  the  budget  to  com- 
pel the  machine  that  does  the  damage  to  pay  a  portion  of 
the  cost  of  the  damage.  By  a  graduated  income  tax  and 
by  death  duties  the  Chancellor  is  making  an  effort  to 
equalize  human  conditions.  He  is  taking  from  men  who 
have  too  much  and  giving  to  men  who  have  too  little  ;  and 


36S  APPENDIX 

this  he  does  not  as  an  act  of  grace  but  as  an  act  of  justice. 
The  income  and  the  inheritance  taxes  are  not  novel,  they 
have  had  a  place  in  the  budget  for  years.  Every  one 
recognizes  their  equity.  Lloyd  George  is  original  only  in 
the  uses  to  which  he  puts  the  revenue  of  these  taxes.  In- 
stead of  spending  it  all  in  building  vessels  of  war  he  ap- 
plies a  portion  of  it  to  the  needs  of  the  sick  and  the  aged. 

OLD-AGE  PENSIONS. 

The  budget  established  old-age  pensions  as  a  settled 
principle  of  the  English  government,  making  its  de- 
mand on  the  Exchequer  as  naturally  as  do  war  and  po- 
lice. The  present  government  recognizes  the  duty  of  the 
State  to  defend  the  people  from  the  ravages  of  poverty, 
equally  with  its  duty  to  protect  them  from  the  ravages 
of  war.  And  the  first  duty  is  paramount  to  the  second. 
Poverty  is  far  more  destructive  to  the  life  of  a  nation 
than  war.  "War  sometimes  purines  a  nation  by  bleed- 
ing' it ;  poverty  corrupts  the  blood  of  the  nation  in  its 
veins.  The  care  of  the  aged  is  necessary  to  the  welfare 
of  the  community.  No  people  can  be  great  who  permits 
its  old  men  and  women,  after  a  life  of  honest  toil,  to 
fall  into  pauperism  with  its  attendant  misery  and  dis- 
grace. Old-age  pensions  are  a  necessity  in  our  modern 
industrial  world  if  we  would  save  our  working-people 
from  hopeless  deterioration.  If  the  working-class  must 
support  its  own  aged  it  can  not  properly  support  its  own 
young.  The  crust  that  is  grudgingly  given  to  the  old 
man  belongs  really  to  the  young  child.  If  the  nation 
wishes   a   continual   supply  of  vigorous  young  life,   it 


APPENDIX  3G9 

must  by  means  of  its  surplus  wealth  lift  the  burden  of 
the  aged  from  the  shoulders  of  the  working-class.  If  it 
is  an  honorable  nation  it  will  not  degrade  its  aged  by  a 
dole,  it  will  ennoble  them  by  a  pension;  a  dole  is  a 
badge  of  disgrace,  a  pension  is  an  order  of  nobility. 
With  a  dole  beggars  are  fed,  with  a  pension  heroes  are 
rewarded.  A  pension  is  a  recognition  on  the  part  of 
society  of  the  right  of  the  man  who  has  gone  forth  to 
his  work  and  to  his  labor  until  the  evening  to  a  little 
rest  and  peace  before  he  goes  hence  and  is  no  more 
seen.  With  the  growing  sense  of  social  justice  old-age 
pensions  are  sure  to  be  a  permanent  charge  on  the  public 
purse  and  the  English  Chancellor  does  well  to  make 
permanent  provision  for  them. 

SICK,    ACCIDENT,    AND   DEATH    BENEFITS. 

And  this  wise  statesman,  with  that  prophetic  vision 
which  is  his,  sees  the  necessity  of  increased  taxation 
upon  incomes  and  inheritances,  to  meet  more  adequately 
the  necessities  of  the  working-class  which  arise  from 
the  sickness,  the  accidents,  and  the  untimely  deaths 
which  are  the  outcome  of  the  present  industrial  method. 
The  factory  with  its  noise  and  dust  is  the  breeding-place 
of  disease;  the  machine  can  destroy  as  well  as  create; 
it  is  the  grim  instrument  of  accident  and  death.  The 
cost  of  this  sickness,  accident,  and  death  is  terrific  and 
up  to  the  present  time  has  been  paid,  for  the  most  part, 
by  the  working-classes.  Whoever  doubts  the  power  of 
these  classes  to  organize  and  control  great  enterprises 
knows   nothing   of   the     history    and    workings   of    the 


370  APPENDIX 

Friendly  Societies  of  England  and  the  Fraternal  Or- 
ders of  America.  These  organizations  embrace  millions 
of  members  and  pay  out  millions  of  money  in  sick  and 
death  benefits.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  but  for 
these  societies  and  orders,  and  their  highly  organized 
work  of  relief,  our  civilization  could  not  endure  for  a 
decade.  It  is  by  this  system  of  cooperative  insurance 
that  the  working-classes  have  been  able  to  survive  the 
disasters  of  their  calling.  The  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer very  wisely  declares  that  under  no  circum- 
stances should  the  government  do  anything  to  impair 
the  efficiency  of  these  organizations  which  the  people 
have  created  to  meet  their  own  needs.  But  it  can  lend 
a  helping  hand.  It  can  make  insurance  against  sick- 
ness, accident,  and  death  compulsory  and  it  can  pay  a 
part  of  the  expense  of  that  insurance.  And  it  can  by 
rigid  control  and  taxation  do  much  to  curtail  the  evils 
of  the  capitalistic  insurance  companies  which  prey  upon 
the  poor  in  their  hours  of  sickness,  misfortune,  and 
death.  This  making  a  gain  out  of  disease  and  death 
is  the  last  worst  outrage  of  the  rich  against  the  lives  of 
the  poor.  In  his  budget  Lloyd  George  lays  down  the 
principle  that  insurance  against  sickness,  accident,  and 
death  must  be  under  the  control  and  so  far  as  necessary 
at  the  expense  of  the  State.  The  working-man,  as  a 
matter  of  State  policy,  should  not  be  permitted  to  stint 
himself  of  food,  clothing,  and  shelter,  in  his  time 
of  health  to  make  provision  for  himself  against 
sickness,  accident,  and  death.     A  healthy  working-man 


APPENDIX  371 

is  a  social  asset.     Society  cannot  afford  to  allow  this 
asset  to  depreciate  for  want  of  proper  care. 

WIDOWED   AND   DESERTED   MOTHERHOOD. 

In  the  case  of  widowed  and  forsaken  motherhood  the 
duty  of  society  is  too  plain  for  comment.  When  a 
woman  has  performed  the  paramount  duty  of  conceiv- 
ing, breeding,  and  bearing  a  citizen  to  the  State,  she  ac- 
quires a  right  to  protection  and  support  which  no  State 
which  values  its  own  life  can  safely  ignore.  If  her 
working-mate  dies,  or  for  any  reason  becomes  incompe- 
tent, then  the  State  must  take  the  husband's  duty  upon 
itself  and  make  due  provision  for  the  mother  and  the 
children;  and  this  not  as  a  matter  of  what  in  irony  is 
called  charity,  but  as  a  matter  of  justice  and  expe- 
diency. In  this  world  the  State  is,  or  ought  to  be,  the 
vicar  of  that  God  who  is  the  God  of  the  fatherless  and 
who  pleads  the  cause  of  the  widow.  The  only  wise 
method  of  helping  a  widowed  or  forsaken  mother  is  to 
pay  her  a  fixed  pension  sufficient  to  support  herself  and 
her  children  in  a  reasonable  degree  of  comfort. 

To  separate  a  mother  from  her  children  except  in  case 
of  dire  necessity  is  more  cruel  and  unnatural  than  to 
seeth  a  kid  in  its  mother's  milk.  To  put  a  mother  and 
growing  children  on  starvation  rations  is  an  act  of  folly 
equal  to  that  of  starving  an  army  on  the  eve  of  a  battle. 
The  time  is  coming,  yea  now  is,  when  the  humanity  of  a 
community  will  be  gauged  by  the  wisdom  and  the 
generosity  with  which  it  cares  for  its  widowed  and  for- 


372  APPENDIX 

saken  mothers  and  their  orphaned  and  forsaken  children. 

COMPENSATION  FOR  WORKMEN  IN  TIMES  OF  ENFORCED 
IDLENESS. 

Perhaps  the  most  radical  of  all  the  proposals  of  the 
budget  is  that  the  State,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
masters  and  men,  shall  provide  a  fund  to  compensate 
workers  for  loss  of  time  when  they  are  laid  off  during 
seasons  of  trade  depression.  By  this  method  the  Chan- 
cellor desires  to  remedy  one  of  the  greatest  wrongs  of 
our  present  industrial  system.  There  is  no  evil  in  the 
lot  of  the  working-man  that  causes  him  more  distress 
than  the  uncertainty  of  his  employment.  In  busy  times 
he  is  rushed  at  a  breathless  speed  to  fill  the  orders  that 
come  pouring  into  the  office.  As  soon  as  the  hurry  is 
over  he  is  put  on  half-time,  and  when  business  is  slack 
he  is  laid  off  altogether  and  becomes  an  enforced  idler. 
His  expenses  go  on,  his  income  ceases.  He  sees  his  little 
savings  wasting  day  by  day  until  they  are  exhausted  and 
then  he  becomes  the  most  miserable  of  all  creatures,  an 
object  of  charity.  He  makes  application  for  relief  at 
one  of  the  various  agencies  and  so  takes  his  first  step 
on  the  easy  downward  way  to  pauperism.  Every  period 
of  trade-depression  leaves  in  its  wake  a  host  of  men 
who  by  enforced  idleness  have  become  idlers.  Without 
hope,  without  desire,  they  go  to  swell  that  crowd  of  men 
who  stand  in  the  bread-line,  drink  stale  beer,  beg  and 
pilfer  and  become  a  nuisance  to  themselves  and  others. 
There  can  be  no  effective  warfare  against  poverty  which 
does  not  vigorously  attack  this  evil.     The  manufacturer 


APPENDIX  373 

and  the  merchant  support  themselves  during  these  times 
of  dearth  out  of  their  accumulated  profits.  The  work- 
man's wage  is  not  sufficient  for  him  to  make  anything 
like  an  adequate  provision  for  such  contingencies. 

The  English  Chancellor  is  far-sighted  in  wishing  to  aid 
the  working-class  to  tide  over  these  times  of  distress. 
Such  a  provision  would  make  these  crises  in  trade  less 
frequent,  less  violent,  and  of  shorter  duration.  Trade 
dulness  comes  from  glut  in  the  market.  This  glut  in- 
creases with  the  decrease  of  purchasing-power  on  the 
part  of  the  people.  An  idle  workman  earns  no  money 
and  cannot  buy.  To  lay  off  workmen  is  only  to  intensify 
and  prolong  the  crises.  Hence  it  is  to  the  interest  of 
all  parties  that  there  shall  be  a  fund  to  continue  the  pur- 
chasing-power of  the  mass  of  the  people  until  the  glut 
is  exhausted.  Such  a  provision  will  have  a  most  benef- 
icent influence  on  the  labor  world.  It  will  relieve  the 
working-class  from  the  anxiety  and  degradation  that 
come  from  enforced  idleness ;  it  will  make  the  periods  of 
unemployment  less  frequent  and  of  shorter  duration, 
and  society  will  be  freed  from  the  reproach  of  having 
men  stand  in  market-places  all  the  day  idle  because  no 
man  hath  hired  them. 

TAXES  ON  IMPORTS  AND  EXPORTS. 

In  making  up  his  budget  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer utterly  refused  to  depart  from  the  long  estab- 
lished policy  of  England  which  makes  the  trade  of  that 
country  free  to  the  world.  He  would  not  for  a  moment 
consider  the  question  of  imposing  taxes  upon  imports 


374  APPENDIX 

and  exports.  He  deplores  the  necessity  of  increasing  the 
tax  on  teas.  That  tax  he  tells  us  is  a  requirement  of  the 
revenue  and  has  in  it  nothing-  of  that  mischievous  ele- 
ment of  protection  which  is  working  so  much  harm  in 
America.  It  is  a  matter  of  congratulation  that  the  fiscal 
policy  of  England  is  in  the  keeping  of  a  statesman  who 
will  not  be  driven  by  temporary  distress  to  the  use  of 
expedients,  which,  like  quack  medicines,  only  aggravate 
the  evil  which  they  claim  to  cure.  It  is  a  blessing  to  the 
whole  world  that  England  at  the  command  of  the  Chan- 
cellor still  flies  the  flag  of  free  trade.  Let  him  pursue 
this  policy  with  unfaltering  courage.  The  present  in- 
sensate policy  of  America  and  Germany  must  sooner  or 
later  perish  of  its  own  foolishness.  In  America  its 
abuses  are  so  rank  that  the  stench  of  them  is  in  every 
nostril.  The  American  tariff  is  the  hiding-  and  breed- 
ing-place of  political  and  commercial  corruption.  It  is 
the  main  cause  of  the  swollen  fortunes  that  grow  as 
unsightly  tumors  on  the  body  politic.1 

EVILS   OP   THE   AMERICAN   TARIFF. 

So  great  and  growing  are  the  evils  of  the  American 
tariff  legislation  that  they  threaten  the  life  of  the  country. 
The  American  government  must  kill  the  tariff  or  the 
tariff  will  kill  the  government.  It  will  not  be  long  now 
before  the  American  people  will  awaken  from  the  mad 
delusion  that  they  can  grow  rich  by  restraining  their 

i  The  recent  tariff  act  relieves  the  United  States  of  some  of 
the  odium  of  a  false  and  mischievous  economic  system.  But 
it  is  only  a  step  in  the  right  direction  which  is  Freedom  of 
Trade  with  the  world. 


APPENDIX  375 

trade,  that  they  can  sell  without  buying  and  by  legisla- 
tive hocus-pocus  get  something  for  nothing  and  make  the 
foreigner  pay  their  taxes. 

In  this  misguided  policy  America  has  misled  the  na- 
tions; they  see  the  cause  of  her  wealth,  not  in  her  vast 
natural  resources  and  her  great  and  continued  free  im- 
portation of  labor,  but  in  her  policy  of  protection.  So, 
the  nations  following  her  evil  example  say:  "Go  to, 
we  also  will  get  rich  by  taxation.  We  will  not  buy  of 
the  hated  foreigner;  we  will  only  sell  to  him."  It  will 
not  be  long  before  the  whole  world  will  rue  the  day  when 
it  thus  followed  the  example  of  the  American  Republic 
to  do  evil.  Already  men  are  beginning  to  awaken  to  the 
fact  that  they  can  no  more  grow  rich  by  restraining  the 
freedom  of  their  trade  than  they  can  grow  strong  by 
restricting  the  circulation  of  their  blood.  Every  man 
having  the  welfare  of  the  world  at  heart  must  com- 
mend the  policy  of  the  English  Chancellor  and  cry  to 
him :     ' '  Stand  still  and  see  the  salvation  of  the  Lord. ' ' 

THE   CHANCELLOR  AND  THE  EXCISE. 

The  Chancellor  deals  with  the  excise  as  wisely  as  he 
deals  with  the  tariff.  He  puts  a  larger  tax  upon  in- 
toxicating liquors  and  upon  public  houses  not  for  the 
purpose  of  increasing  the  revenue,  but  with  the  intention 
of  decreasing  the  consumption  of  alcoholic  liquids,  with 
its  consequent  drunkenness,  misery,  and  degradation. 
The  Chancellor  congratulates  himself  and  the  country  on 
the  fact  that  the  growing  abstinence  of  the  people  has 
made  excise  taxation  less  profitable  to  the  Exchequer; 


376  APPENDIX 

and  by  the  increasing  rate  of  taxation  he  hopes  still 
further  to  reduce  that  source  of  revenue.   . 

It  is  not  to  the  honor  of  England  that  it  has  so  long 
battened  on  the  vice  of  the  people.  In  deriving  so  large 
a  part  of  its  revenue  from  the  sale  of  spirits,  it  has 
made  the  State  responsible  for  the  degradation  of  the 
people.  Its  policy  in  this  respect  has  been  the  acme  of 
folly.  It  has  been  a  partner  in  the  sale  of  that  which 
it  punishes  the  people  for  using.  It  glorifies  distilling 
and  brewing  and  at  the  same  time  condemns  the  drinking 
that  makes  the  brewing  and  distilling  profitable.  It 
sends  the  brewer  and  the  distiller  into  the  House  of 
Lords,  while  it  sends  the  drunkard  to  prison.  It  re- 
wards the  cause  and  punishes  the  effect.  The  present 
Chancellor  proposes  to  make  the  tax  on  liquor  as  nearly 
prohibitive  as  possible.  He  would  make  drunkenness  a 
luxury  for  the  Lords,  not  a  necessity  for  the  Commons. 

THE   USE   OF   THE   SURPLUS. 

We  do  not  wonder  that  conservative  England  stands 
aghast  at  such  radical  and  even  revolutionary  proposals. 
The  very  calmness  and  simplicity  with  which  the  Chan- 
cellor lays  down  and  discusses  his  propositions  must  ir- 
ritate the  possessing-classes  to  madness.  They  bite  their 
nails  at  this  little  Welshman  and  call  him  a  thief  and  a 
robber.  When  he  proposes  that  the  monopoly  of  the 
land  and  the  monopoly  of  the  tool  shall  be  somewhat 
abridged,  when  Lloyd  George  declares  that  the  people  of 
England  have  some  right  and  title  in  the  land  of  Eng- 
land;  when  he   affirms   that   the   laborers   of   England 


APPENDIX  377 

should  be  fairly  considered  when  it  comes  to  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  product  of  their  toil,  then  these  land- 
owners and  tool-owners  lift  up  their  hands  and  cry: 
' '  This  is  robbery ;  this  is  confiscation ! ' ' 

"No,  gentlemen,"  answers  the  Chancellor,  "this  is  res- 
toration ;  this  is  compensation.  Too  long  have  the  people 
of  England  been  deprived  of  their  just  right  and  title 
in  the  land  on  which  they  live.  It  is  the  people  of 
England  who  give  value  to  the  land  of  England.  Let  the 
people  forsake  the  land  and  an  acre  in  Middlesex  will 
be  as  worthless  as  an  acre  in  Sahara.  It  is  but  just  that 
the  values  which  the  people  create  the  people  should 
share.  Too  long  have  the  toilers  of  England  been  de- 
prived of  their  just  portion  in  the  prosperity  of  Eng- 
land. During  the  last  hundred  and  twenty  years  Eng- 
land has  been  growing  rich  until  her  wealth  surpasses 
that  of  any  nation  known  to  history.  This  wealth  is  a 
social  product.  It  is  the  common  product  of  her  in- 
ventors, of  her  statesmen,  of  her  organizers,  of  her  arti- 
zans,  her  mechanics,  and  last  but  not  least  of  that  class 
which  Bishop  Andrews  calls  'the  mean  workmen  and 
the  poor.'  One  class  only  has  had  little  or  no  share  in 
creating  the  wealth  of  England  and  that  is  the  land- 
owning and  the  mere  capitalistic  tool-owning  class." 

LAND-OWNER  AND   TOOL-OWNER  UNDULY   REWARDED. 

In  the  distribution  of  the  common  product  vast  in- 
justice has  prevailed.  The  land-owner  and  the  tool- 
owner  have  under  the  forms  of  law  deprived  the  rest 
of  the  community  of  its  due  and  rightful  share  in  the 


378  APPENDIX 

common  property.  The  inventor  too  often  has  been  de- 
prived of  the  due  reward  of  his  genius,  the  statesman 
has  been  thwarted  in  every  effort  at  true  statesman- 
ship and  his  reward  too  frequently  has  been  in  direct 
ratio  to  his  betrayal  of  the  rights  of  the  people ;  the 
artist  is  treated  with  indifference,  the  artizan  with  con- 
tempt, the  mechanic  with  injustice ;  all  these  for  genera- 
tions have  been  compelled  to  stand  cap  in  hand  in  the 
superior  presence  of  the  land-owner  and  the  tool-owner ; 
and  as  for  the  mean  workman  and  the  poor,  these  have 
been  trodden  upon  by  the  upper  classes,  with  a  cruelty 
worthy  of  Edward  Hyde,  into  the  mire  of  a  debasing 
poverty.  It  is  not  to  the  credit  of  our  humanity  that 
the  Lords  and  the  Gentry  resist  the  very  reasonable  ef- 
forts of  Lloyd  George  to  right  these  victims  of  social 
wrong. 

REDISTRIBUTION   OF   THE   SURPLUS. 

What  he  proposes  is  nothing  other  than  a  redistribu- 
tion of  the  surplus  wealth  of  England.  The  wealth  of 
England  is  sufficient  to  maintain  all  the  people  of  Eng- 
land in  comfort,  and  in  the  mind  of  the  Chancellor  the 
comfort  of  the  many  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  luxury  of 
the  few.  The  ruling-class  of  England  have  wasted  the 
surplus  of  the  country  in  the  maintenance  of  an  un- 
wieldy and  expensive  empire.  A  vast  army  of  younger 
sons  enjoy  colonial  sinecures  at  the  expense  of  the  pub- 
lic purse.  In  the  interests  of  the  empire  unjust  and 
wasteful  wars  are  carried  on,  to  the  exhaustion  of  the 
Exchequer  and  the  depletion  of  the  life-force  of  the 
people.     For  the  protection  of  the  Empire,  dreadnought 


APPENDIX  379 

follows  dreadnought,  devouring  the  money  that  the  peo- 
ple need  for  bread.  Lloyd  George  in  his  budget  calls 
a  halt  to  this  policy  of  mad  imperialism.  He  says  the 
needs  of  the  people  of  England  are  paramount  to  the 
needs  of  the  Empire  of  England.  To  what  profit  is  it 
if  we  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  our  own  life  ? 

Let  the  Empire  of  England  be  in  the  hearts  and  over 
the  lives  of  Englishmen;  let  her  promote  justice  and 
equity  in  her  own  cities  and  on  her  own  estates;  let  her 
educate  and  enfranchise  all  of  her  people ;  let  her  make 
the  poor  the  equal  of  the  peers  in  the  sight  of  the  law ; 
let  her  give  political  rights  to  her  women  and  home-rule 
to  Ireland, — and  she  will  have  less  need  of  dreadnoughts. 
Her  own  people  will  be  her  sufficient  defense.  When 
England  is  just,  England  need  not  be  afraid.  Lloyd 
George  is  however  a  practical  statesman  as  well  as  a 
political  seer,  he  provides  for  the  present  while  he  plans 
for  the  future.  He  proposes  to  give  the  Lords  and  the 
Gentry  their  dreadnoughts;  all  he  asks  is  that  the  Lords 
and  Gentry  shall  help  to  pay  for  them. 

CHANCELLOR  AIDED    BY   SPIRITUAL   FORCES. 

In  his  warfare  against  poverty  Lloyd  George  is  aided 
by  spiritual  forces  that  make  him  invincible.  The 
Lords  may  be  against  him,  but  the  Lord  is  with  him. 
He  has  enlisted  on  his  side  the  religious  enthusiasm  of 
the  people.  His  budget  is  a  practical  application  to  the 
affairs  of  England  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  It  is  good 
news  to  the  poor.  It  answers  to  that  cry  for  brother- 
hood which  comes  from  the  life  of  the  nobler  men  and 


380  APPENDIX 

women  of  our  times.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  a  religious 
movement  than  which  none  has  been  more  important 
since  the  days  of  the  Mosaic  Exodus.  The  religion  of 
our  day  comes  with  a  message  of  hope  to  the  bond  slave 
of  the  machine  and  the  mine.  Its  prophets  preach  in- 
dustrial freedom.  It  seeks  to  banish  from  the  world 
the  specter  of  want.  It  knows  that  in  our  Father's  house 
is  bread  enough  and  to  spare. 

We  know  to-day  that  poverty  is  not  a  divine  institu- 
tion, it  is  a  human  blunder.  It  is  not  the  ordinance  of 
God  that  keeps  the  poor  always  with  us,  it  is  the  blind 
selfishness  and  wastefulness  of  men.  The  abolition  of 
poverty,  that  fair  prospect  which  Lloyd  George  pre- 
sents to  our  vision,  is  not  a  foolish  dream.  It  belongs 
to  the  working  and  not  to  the  sleeping  world.  It  is 
because  we  are  awake  as  we  have  never  been  before  to 
the  possibilities  of  human  life  on  this  earth  that  we 
can  no  longer  endure  its  sordidness  and  its  misery.  The 
growing  intelligence  of  men  which  has  solved  so  many 
problems  of  the  Universe  will  not  stand  forever  hope- 
less and  perplexed  before  the  riddle  of  his  own  wretched- 
ness. 

MEN   AND   WOMEN   OF   WEALTH   DISSATISFIED. 

It  is  a  sign  of  the  times  that  men  and  women  of  great 
wealth  are  devoting  their  riches  not  to  the  relief  but  to 
the  prevention  of  poverty.  It  is  also  ominous  that  the 
possession  of  great  wealth  is  no  longer  honorable  but 
rather  disgraceful.  The  insistent  question,  How  did  you 
get  it?  disturbs  the  rich  man  in  his  sleep  and  makes 
his  bed  uneasy.     The  best  men  and  women  in  the  privi- 


APPENDIX  381 

leged  classes  are  becoming  traitors  to  their  class  and 
are  leading  in  the  war  against  privilege  and  poverty. 

CONCLUSION. 

Universal  education  and  adult  suffrage  is  leveling  hu- 
manity upward  and  old  class  distinctions  are  no  longer 
tenable.  Our  common  humanity  is  becoming  more  po- 
tent than  our  social  distinctions.  Social  equality  is 
the  necessary  corollary  to  political  equality. 

It  is  not  the  King  nor  the  Lords  that  are  sovereign  in 
England  to-day,  the  people  are  sovereign  and  the  sover- 
eign people  will  no  longer  consent  to  go  ragged  and 
hungry.  The  people  will  no  longer  consent  to  leave 
the  most  important  of  their  affairs  in  irresponsible 
hands.  The  coming  age  will  see  a  vast  extension  of  the 
principle  of  social  control.  The  principle  of  competi- 
tion must  give  place  to  the  principle  of  cooperation. 
The  day  of  Laissez-Faire  is  passing.  Men  will  no  longer 
stand  by  and  listen  to  the  cynical  cry  of  "Let  be; 
let  us  see  whether  Elias  will  come  and  save  him. ' '  Man 
no  longer  looks  to  the  skies  for  salvation.  He  knows 
that  whatever  salvation  comes  to  him  must  come  from 
the  workings  of  his  own  mind  and  the  promptings  of  his 
own  heart.  If  he  would  redeem  his  race  from  the  dis- 
grace of  poverty  he  must  do  it  in  obedience  to  fixed  laws 
and  by  means  of  resident  forces.  The  budget  of  Lloyd 
George  is  an  effort  to  cure  social  evils  by  social  remedies, 
and  we  cannot  help  hoping  and  believing  with  him  ' '  that 
before  this  generation  has  passed  away  we  shall  have 
advanced  a  great  step  toward  that  good  time  when  pov- 


38£  APPENDIX 

erty  and  the  human  wretchedness  and  degradation  that 
follow  in  its  camp  will  be  as  remote  to  the  people  of  all 
lands  as  the  wolves  that  once  infested  the  forests." 


THE  END 


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DATE  DUE 

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CI  39 

UCSD  Libr. 

